In Self Defence
by Alipeeps
Summary: House is attacked by a clinic patient. Major House angst and lots of HurtComfort but no ships, just HouseWilson and HouseCuddy friendship. Chapter 11 now up at last!
1. Chapter 1

_Welcome to my 2nd Fanfic – Rated T for I guess adult themes and violence (but no swear words this time!). I'm crap at this rating stuff so just consider yourself warned that this fic deals with the occurrence and aftermath of a physical attack on a major character._

_Okay this first chapter is pretty dark stuff – major House angst involving physical violence (see above). Vaguely inspired by clips from the trailer of Episode 7 showing House getting into a fight in what looks like one of the exam rooms. Further chapters to follow – will involve HouseWilson friendship and hurt/comfort etc but no specific romance pairings (or at least, I don't think so!)_

_Sorry to be so mean to House but sometimes you just can't beat a good bit of angst! _

_Reviews and constructive criticism welcomed, as always…_

**In Self-Defence**

House paused for a moment in the doorway of Exam Room 1 and regarded his latest patient dubiously. The man's hair was long and unkempt and his clothes rumpled and stained. Despite the cold weather outside, he wore only a thin t-shirt with no jacket and his bare arms were huddled around his midriff. His sallow face looked older than the 31 years his file indicated. He sat huddled on the edge of the examining couch, his jean-clad legs swinging restlessly.

The patient looked up at House as he slowly closed the door behind him and he immediately took note of the glassy look to the man's eyes. He let his gaze drop to the patient's wiry arms as he limped slowly across to the counter and laid the man's file down. House was examining the patient closely even as he casually used his cane to hook the legs of the wheeled stool and drew it closer.

He sat down with a sigh that was a mixture of relief from taking his weight off his leg and a measure of trepidation at the prospect of dealing with this latest clinic patient. He opened the file on his lap and mentally bet himself five bucks on what the patient's complaint was going to be

"Soooo, Mr..", he consulted the top page of the file, "..Hardwick. What can we do for you today?"

The patient took a moment to reply and to House it seemed he struggled somewhat to focus his mind on the fairly simple question. An unaccustomed feeling of concern settled in House's stomach.

The man's voice was dry and harsh when he spoke and he seemed to look through House rather than at him. "I've..umm.. I've a headache. It's really bad – I've had it for days. Can you give me something for it?"

House nodded to himself thoughtfully – it was always nice to be proved right.

He ran his eyes over the remainder of the patient's file and snapped the folder shut decisively. "A headache eh? And you've had it for days.." He regarded the man consideringly and asked "Have you taken anything for it?"

"Ummm… er, yeah, I took some aspirin but it didn't help."

"Riiiight" House breathed, feeling his patience begin to slip away from him.

"Well then, a headache that lasts for several days and doesn't respond to over-the-counter pain medication - I guess we'd better have a look at this eh? Maybe do a CAT scan or something, make sure it's not a brain tumour or something nasty, hmm?" he said, not bothering to hide the growing sarcasm in his voice.

The patient seemed to snap out of his daze at that and he threw a nervous glance at House, his voice was tight as he hurriedly demurred, "Uh, no – that's ok. I get headaches a lot, all I need is something for the pain."

House gave the man a level look that spoke volumes of scepticism. "You have repeated headaches that require prescription pain medication but you don't want to have any investigations performed?" he pushed.

The patient scowled but didn't answer and House figured he had worked out that the game was up. With an impatient sigh he gave a flick of his wrist and tossed the clinic file carelessly onto the nearby countertop. The patient started at the sudden movement and House's uncomfortable feeling intensified as he took note of the man's increasing agitation. The solid wood of his cane felt somehow reassuring in his grip as he levered himself to his feet. House placed the cane solidly before him and leant on it with both hands, his manner deceptively casual as he spoke to the patient.

"Mr Hardwick, I get the feeling this is not the first time you have visited a clinic complaining of these symptoms and the fact that you don't want any kind of investigations leads me to believe you don't actually _have_ any symptoms and that a headache has nothing to do with why you are asking for prescription pain medication."

The patient remained sullenly silent and turned his head to avoid House's unforgiving gaze. He made no move to vacate the exam room however and House, as ever, had little sympathy for time-wasters. He regarded the man with barely concealed impatience. "Next time you go to a clinic to try and score drugs, you might want to wear a jacket," he advised him with a pointed glance at the bare arms he was still defiantly hugging to his midriff. "Track marks are something of a giveaway, diagnostically speaking."

That brought the man's attention back to House and the look in those eyes made him straighten his stance somewhat, his fingers tightening on the handle of the cane. House didn't like the way sweat had started to spring up on Hardwick's forehead and the glassy eyes were starting to look a little wild. For a moment House was all too aware of how far away the door to the exam room was – and just how much the loss of a significant chunk of thigh muscle affects mobility.

Hardwick's face was as sullen as ever but there was a hint of desperation in his eyes as he muttered, "You're not gonna give me nothing?" House kept his face impassive, and even managed to refrain from making a sarcastic comment about the use of double negatives, and calmly said "No."

Hardwick unwrapped his arms from his midriff long enough to slide himself from the examining couch. He stood for a moment glaring at House who simply nodded his head in the direction of the closed door to the patient's left. "Door's that way," he added helpfully. When Hardwick didn't move immediately House found himself instinctively shifting his grip on the cane in front of him. The uncomfortable feeling he'd had about this patient suddenly coalesced into a palpable air of danger as the man stayed leaning on the exam bed, his agitation becoming more obvious as he looked wildly from the door, to the doctor before him and then to the closed cupboards and drawers lining the exam room.

Interpreting that look correctly, House warned him, "There's nothing in there that you want. We don't keep those kinds of meds in here." Hardwick turned a naked gaze on him and the desperation was now evident in his eyes - and right then House knew this was not going to end well. "You get me something then!" the man snarled. House shook his head slowly, doing his best not to aggravate the man, realising now that any sudden movements could escalate things rapidly out of control. "Can't do it," he said firmly.

The tension between doctor and patient filled the small room, humming in the air between them, a potential for violence that stretched thinner and thinner with each passing minute. When it snapped, it was sudden and explosive.

In the space between one breath and the next House saw the desperation in those eyes turn to uncontrollable rage at being denied. Pure instinct made him bring the cane up a second before the patient lunged towards him and he managed to get in a solid blow to the stomach before Hardwick slammed into him, knocking him off-balance, two sets of hands now struggling for possession of the cane. With a strength born of desperate rage, his assailant twisted the length of the cane in House's hands, trying to wrest it from his grip.

Struggling to keep his balance, House could feel he was losing his grip on the smooth wood of the cane and, with a brutal jerk, Hardwick twisted House's wrist back on itself and slammed the end of the cane sharply into his right thigh. He couldn't help crying out as jagged pain stabbed through his leg and the quivering muscles gave way beneath him, sending him crashing to the floor at Hardwick's feet, leaving the cane in his attacker's hands. The jarring impact of his shoulder and hip taking the brunt of the fall knocked the breath from him even as his injured leg burned with fresh agony as it slammed into the unforgiving clinic floor.

Instinct made him curl around the source of his pain, gritting his teeth as the damaged nerves in his leg screamed with fire. The first blow of the cane impacting across his back snapped him back into some sense of self-preservation and he tried to straighten, to do something to defend himself but, even as he moved, his leg muscles spasmed agonisingly and he let out a muffled scream even as Hardwick rained further blows down on him.

The pain roared through him, drowning out thought or consciousness and it was a moment or two before he became aware that Hardwick's frenzied attack had ceased. Curled helplessly on the floor he struggled to breathe through the red waves of agony. His eyes were clenched shut and dark spots seemed to dance in the periphery of his vision. His head was pounding. Through the dizzying pain he became aware of harsh breathing and a low keening moan – it took an age for him to realise the sound was his own. From seemingly far away there was a muffled crashing and banging noise and House realised dimly that Hardwick was turning the exam room upside down, searching desperately for drugs.

A scream of rage was followed by the impact of a projectile bouncing off his shoulder and the distinctive clatter of his cane skittering across the tiled floor beside him. Forcing himself to breathe through the pain, House struggled to raise his head from the floor. He caught a quick glimpse of enraged eyes from which all sanity seemed to have fled before the impact of Hardwick's foot slammed into him. The kick caught him in the chest, the bruising force of it tumbling him over onto his back. His vision swam nauseatingly as he gasped for air, unable even to cry out when another kick landed against his ribs.

House struggled to breathe as unrelenting pain washed through him, his body screaming with fresh agony at each vicious blow. He was almost glad of the stunning impact of a hard boot against his temple, setting off violent fireworks behind his closed eyelids, leaving his head swimming dizzyingly for a long instant before blessed darkness swallowed him whole.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

_A slightly shorter chapter here but I'm on a roll with this story and wanted to get the next part up and carry on writing – and it seemed to come to a fairly natural conclusion all on it's own so I felt that was a good place to leave it. I also want to take the time to do some research before I start spouting too many symptoms and medical technical jargon so it's probably a good thing to leave those to the next chapter!_

_Thanks to AliciA for the review – really glad you liked it and hope you enjoy where it's heading.._

_Once again, all reviews and constructive criticism gladly received._

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**In Self Defence – Chapter 2**

Dr Lisa Cuddy surveyed the over-flowing clinic with exasperation. The waiting area was full to the brim and, surprise, surprise, there was no sign of House. She checked her watch – he still had another 2 hours before his clinic duty was done for the day. The clinic nurse saw her coming and didn't even wait to hear the question she knew would be forthcoming. "I'm sorry Dr Cuddy," the woman apologised, "I haven't seen him in over an hour and I've paged him twice – he hasn't answered."

Cuddy shrugged helplessly and the two women shared a look of mutual resignation that spoke of a shared experience of the frustrating Dr House. "Well," she sighed, "it certainly wouldn't be the first time he's ignored a page from the clinic." She reached for the pile of records filling up the in-tray on the desk. "Who was his last patient?" she asked the nurse as she skimmed through the pile. "Maybe he's stumbled across something rare and exciting and smuggled the patient off to diagnostics.."

The nurse flicked through the discouragingly small pile of completed case files. Then, frowning slightly, she checked through them again, more thoroughly. Cuddy looked up from the file she was reading as the nurse moved to the computer and brought up the clinic records. "What is it?" she queried.

The nurse's frown deepened as she checked through the computer records. "Well, this just isn't right," she muttered. Raising her eyes from the screen she explained, "The system shows six patients logged as having been treated by Dr House but I only have five files returned."

Cuddy frowned, "Must be a mistake in the records… unless he's found a patient with a Gameboy and they've spent the past hour hiding in a closet playing a link-up game.." she stopped halfway through that thought, rolling her eyes in exasperation as she realised she wouldn't actually be all that surprised if that was exactly what he'd done.

The clinic nurse had a thoughtful look on her face however, as she read through the computer records once more. "No," she said slowly, "I remember this last patient…" She grimaced slightly as she faced Cuddy, "To be quite honest, he didn't smell too great." she explained. "I remember I sent him to Exam Room 1 to wait for Dr House – and I'm sure I saw Dr House go in there. He definitely took the patient's file from the desk.."

Cuddy looked over her shoulder at the firmly closed door to Exam Room 1. She wouldn't put it past House to have stayed put in there for the last hour or more, reading magazines or watching soaps whilst the waiting area filled to breaking point. Granted he usually only did that to fill up the last hour or so of his scheduled clinic duty and avoid getting caught up in some tedious treatment that would make him late for… whatever the hell else he found more interesting than clinic duty. Which, she conceded, was just about anything. But House was nothing if not unpredictable and who was to say he hadn't changed tactics – probably just to annoy her.

She replaced the waiting patient files in the in-tray – she was damned if she was gonna cover House's clinic hours unless he left her with absolutely no choice – and asked one last question of the desk nurse. "Did you see his last patient leave?" The woman nodded slowly, "I'm pretty sure I did – maybe an hour or so ago?"

Cuddy gritted her teeth and strode purposefully across to Exam Room 1, her expensive heels clicking angrily on the cold tiles of the clinic floor – if she found House in there hiding from his responsibilities there was going to be hell to pay.

With a perfunctory knock she pushed the door open, mentally girding herself for the battle ahead, and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight that greeted her. Her immediate thought was chaos, utter chaos. The room looked like a tornado had torn through it – every drawer and cupboard was pulled open, the contents spilled across the counters, the floor. The mayhem was too much to take in all at once; bandages and latex gloves, sample boxes, medical gauze and water cups strewn everywhere - it looked like an explosion in a drug rep's office. How on earth could this have happened and no-one have heard the commotion?

She turned in the doorway to call the nurse from the desk, demand an explanation, and something caught her peripheral vision, snapped her head back around. She stepped further into the room and felt the air rush from her lungs as looked around the edge of the open door. For a second it felt like her brain couldn't process the enormity of the scene before her and she saw only a succession of snapshots, of detail, of minutiae; the walking cane abandoned in the corner of the room, the overturned stool, the clinic file lying open on the floor, the utter, utter stillness of the.. of the… and then it hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. That was House laying there on the floor of the exam room, surrounded by chaos and debris, his limbs loose and tangled like a puppet whose strings have been suddenly cut.

For a moment she was frozen in place as her mind tried to deny the reality of what lay before her but then years of training kicked in, her instincts as a doctor propelling her forward even as she struggled to comprehend what had happened. She almost fell to her knees beside the crumpled body on the floor, her shaking fingers feeling frantically for a pulse. The skin of his neck felt dry and cool to her touch and she was so aware of the pounding of her own pulse that at first she wasn't sure what she was feeling. But yes, it was there – weak and thready, but he had a pulse. "Oh thank God," she whispered.

Without moving from her place by his side she twisted towards the open doorway and screamed, "Get me some help in here!"

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

_This is a bit of a fill-in chapter I'm afraid – not a huge amount really happening here but we've got to get House moved from the clinic and some kind of diagnosis of his injuries before we can move forward with events. So not much action here – but lots of introspection from Cuddy whilst having to deal with the consequences of what has happened._

_I've done my best to research the medical aspects of this stuff but I'm not medically trained so apologies for any mistakes – please do feel free to correct if I've made glaring medical mistakes here. All reviews and constructive criticism welcomed, as ever…_

_Thanks very much to all those who have reviewed so far.._

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**In Self Defence - Chapter 3**

The scream for help from the usually composed Dr Cuddy brought the desk nurse to the exam room at a run. She stopped in the doorway as though she'd run into an invisible wall, her mouth dropping open in stunned surprise at the sight of Dr Cuddy kneeling amidst the chaos of the ransacked room beside an unmoving Dr House. "Oh my God" she breathed, clapping a hand to her mouth. "Is he…?"

"Get a gurney." Cuddy interrupted, the calm authority of her voice belying the fear that coiled in her stomach, "Get someone in here to help me – and get security!" She turned back to House without waiting to see the nurse leave. An unaccustomed feeling of helplessness washed over her at the sight of him lying there, broken and still on the smooth tile of the exam room floor.

She had to concentrate to stop her hand from shaking as she fumbled in the pocket of her lab coat for a penlight and carefully lifted House's eyelids, relieved beyond measure to see his pupils react to the bright light. His piercing blue eyes were vacant and unfocused, the intellect that gave them life and warmth entirely missing. She swallowed down the anxiety that rose like acid in her throat – she had to stay calm, stay professional. She was no good to Greg if she let herself panic.

Clinical, she reminded herself. Look at this from a clinical point of view. He had a pulse and he was breathing so that was the ABC's covered. She reached instinctively for her stethoscope and cursed when she realised she'd left it in her office. She hadn't intended to be treating any patients this afternoon – and certainly hadn't expected to end up in a triage situation. She leaned carefully over House as she checked for signs of injury. A thin line of blood had dried on the right side of his face and she found a small, ragged cut in the hairline near his right temple, together with what looked to be shaping up to a nasty contusion. The surrounding tissue was tight and swollen and already beginning to flush a dull red. She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. Okay, so head trauma.

There were no other visible signs of bleeding, though his skin was pale and there was no reaction to her touch as she examined him. She ran her hands carefully over his torso, looking for any obvious indications of injury, allowing herself to take comfort in the practised, automatic responses honed by years of medical training. Beneath the calm exterior her mind was racing, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events that had led to this, to calculate a timeframe for when the attack had taken place. She sat back abruptly, closing her eyes for a moment, aware of the fear and panic crowding in at the edges of her fragile control. A shaky breath escaped her as she pressed a hand to her forehead. If the clinic nurse was right in her estimate of when his patient left, House could have been lying here unconscious for an hour, maybe more….

"Holy shh.." a familiar voice brought her back to the here and now and she looked up to see Foreman enter the room followed by a resident from the orthopaedics department. The neurologist let his startled epithet trail off as he took in the situation with a glance. He turned to the shell-shocked younger doctor beside him, "Go get a gurney – now!" Give him his due, the resident turned and set off at a run. "What the hell happened here?" Foreman demanded as he knelt next to Cuddy.

"We don't know," she answered tersely, not bothering to ask permission before pulling the stethoscope from around his neck. She could see genuine concern in the younger man's face as he repeated her actions in checking for a carotid pulse. "We, uh… we think it was a patient.." she sighed.

"Pulse is weak." Foreman announced. He frowned, focusing on his wristwatch, "Rapid too." Cuddy nodded sombrely. "He's got a contusion to the right temple" she noted. "No other visible injuries but I'm thinking probable blunt force trauma." She settled the earpieces of the stethoscope in a practised motion and gently pushed House's clothing aside to listen to his chest.

What she saw made her heart sink and the ragged sound of her indrawn breath made Foreman look up from his examination of House's head injury. Following her horrified gaze, he breathed out a curse at the sight. House's chest was a mass of contusions, the damaged flesh reddened and tender. "Who the hell did this?" Foreman muttered as Cuddy held the stethoscope gingerly against House's ribs.

The worry showed on her expressive face as she listened closely to House's breathing, her hands light on his chest as she carefully examined his injuries. She sat back on her heels and pulled the stethoscope from her ears, her mouth a tight, grim line. "Respirations are shallow," she reported, "and rapid. He's got broken ribs, head trauma and he's unresponsive to pain. We've got to get him radiology – he needs a chest x-ray and we need to check for internal injuries."

She stood up abruptly, feeling anger begin to well in her, burning away the numbness and shock. Her voice shook as she looked around her at the evidence of the violence that had erupted in this room, "That bastard really did a number on him."

Foreman looked up at her with a wry expression "Yeah," he agreed, "I wonder what the hell House said to him."

Cuddy couldn't help a weak smile at that, silently thankful for Foreman's attempt to lighten the moment. She was feeling steadier by the moment, the need to take charge, to be in control, winning through the awful shock of finding a member of her staff in this situation, of the thought of such an atrocity taking place in _her _hospital. "Where the hell is that gurney?" she fretted, picking her way through the chaos to the door.

The mood in the clinic waiting area was sombre. Both staff and patients were subdued; the patients had heard the commotion, seen the shock on the faces of the staff as they whispered to each other, and everyone knew that medical staff _running_ through the clinic was never a good sign. Something had happened, something bad. Cuddy was pleased to see the security staff she'd requested had taken charge of the situation, keeping the concerned patients well clear of the area around Exam Room 1 and doing their best to allay fears. Even as she looked she saw one of them clearing a path for the Orthopaedics resident with her requested gurney and she moved briskly to meet it, feeling a measure of comfort in taking control of matters, guiding the gurney to where it was needed, ordering the desk nurse to come and assist.

Moving House to the gurney was a delicate operation in the cramped confines of the exam room. It took the four of them to carefully move him, anxious to keep him as immobile as possible. Laid on the gurney he looked pale, weak, almost fragile and Cuddy realised that, despite his physical infirmity, she had never really seen him as being ill, as being in any way weak or helpless. He worked so hard not to be pitied, not to be treated as an invalid, pushing people away before they had a chance to feel sorry for him. His devil may care attitude and the sheer force of his powerful personality had made him seem infallible, untouchable. The revelation of his vulnerability left her off-balance, feeling oddly like her world had shifted on its axis.

As they carefully manoeuvred the gurney towards the door Cuddy's eye fell on House's cane, half buried in the debris littering the floor. It was something so integral to House as she knew him, so much a part of him, that so see it lying abandoned there hit her harder than she could have imagined. The sick fear she had felt since walking in on the remnants of such violence, such destruction, rose up in her throat like bile. Someone had come in here, into her hospital, and defiled it, tarnished it, attacked a member of her staff and in one vicious stroke stripped away the safety and security she had felt in this place.

She stooped slowly to retrieve the cane. The wood felt smooth and cold in her hands, lifeless, unyielding. Her hands tightened around the length of the cane and she ruthlessly smothered the fear and the anger – there would be time enough for that later. Right now, she had a patient to care for.

She followed the gurney through the shocked silence of the clinic, aware of the curious eyes of the patients.. and the stares of the hospital staff who had gathered as word of an incident has spread. House's reputation and behaviour had ensured he was well known throughout the hospital and Cuddy knew that every eye had moved over the gurney with it's unmoving occupant.. and come to rest on the wooden cane clutched in her hands.

Cuddy let Foreman take charge of moving House up to radiology as she stopped at the nurse's desk to issue instructions.

"Close up Exam Room 1 and lock the door – don't touch anything. I don't want anyone else in there until the police arrive." She looked around the clinic, assessing the situation. "Treat the patients we have waiting but don't accept any new admissions – tell them the clinic is temporarily closed for the afternoon."

"Page me in radiology when the police get here." she instructed as she turned to follow after the gurney. Her steps faltered as a horrible thought occurred to her. Turning back to the desk she issued one last instruction, her voice heavy with regret, "And send someone to find Dr Wilson. Don't page him – send someone in person and have him meet me in radiology." The nurse nodded quickly, understanding in her eyes.

Clutching House's cane like a lifeline, Cuddy turned from the desk and, propriety be damned, ran through the clinic, heading for radiology.

_To be continued…._


	4. Chapter 4

_Finally, chapter 4 is finished. Sorry for the long delay in updating, that little thing called life got in the way again and I didn't want to rush this chapter.. it needed to develop in its own time._

_The good news is that chapter 5 is already underway and should be posted within a couple of days._

_So thanks for your patience and thanks again to those who've reviewed. Feedback and constructive criticism is, as always, very welcome…_

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**In Self Defence - Chapter 4**

Thinking back on it, Cuddy thought it was possibly the only time she'd seen James Wilson run. The young oncologist was usually so calm, so unflappable, a reassuring presence to his patients and colleagues alike – and god only knows you had to have the patience of a saint to spend any amount of time with Greg House. She'd never seen Wilson lose his temper, never seen him panic or get upset. He seemed to take life in his stride, dealing with whatever it threw at him with good grace and gentle good humour.

She was talking to one of the two detectives who had arrived from the Princeton police department when he burst through the doors to the radiology department, flushed and breathless from his sprint from the elevator. For a brief moment she was transported back in time to the days of House's infarction; she saw the same fear and worry in Wilson's eyes as she had back then when he'd spent every spare minute at his friend's bedside, hoping against hope that things would work out okay. With a hasty apology to the detective she moved quickly to meet him, hands reaching instinctively to calm him as he looked to her for answers she didn't have.

James' voice was hoarse with fear, "What in hell happened? Is he ok?"

She did her best to reassure him. "He's stable for now. He's pretty beaten up but I don't think it's anything too serious. We're doing an ultrasound to check for any bleeding.. It's just a precautionary measure James, just to be safe".

Lisa could swear Wilson had turned two shades paler at her words. She could only imagine what he was going through right now; she remembered the shock, the sick fear and panic that had clawed at her as she had knelt on the clinic floor to treat her injured colleague. Wilson was his best friend, the one person Greg House seemed to have any kind of real connection with. James seemed to visibly crumple when she mentioned the possibility of internal injuries. The panic-driven adrenalin that had fuelled his frantic dash through the hospital corridors seemed to desert him and she could see him struggling for composure, for medical detachment, even has she had in the clinic just scant minutes before.

"What the hell happened Lisa?" he demanded shakily. "The nurse said something about an attack in the clinic!"

She nodded wearily.

"We don't know much yet," she told him. "We think it was one of the clinic patients. House was missing for over an hour, didn't answer his pager…" She looked up at him wryly, "You know how he is… the nurse thought he was hiding out somewhere, avoiding clinic duty as usual."

Wilson nodded helplessly, his hand moving unconsciously to the back of his neck, rubbing at the tense muscles in a familiar gesture that spoke volumes to Cuddy about his concern for his friend.

She continued to list the awful details of the attack. "Best we can figure, he's been unconscious for at least an hour and right now he's unresponsive to pain. He's got blunt force trauma to the head and chest and chest films show three broken ribs. The ultrasound is just a precaution to make sure there's nothing more serious going on."

Her face was grim as she spoke. "Foreman is monitoring the head injury. When we're done with the ultrasound we'll move him to the ICU and keep a close eye on his vitals."

She shrugged helplessly, her frustration evident. "All we can do then is wait for him to wake up."

Wilson closed his eyes for a second and dragged a hand across his face, tension evident in every movement of his body, before giving a resigned nod.

"Okay." He said quietly. He drew in a breath, visibly getting his emotions under control, and when his expressive brown eyes met hers Cuddy saw calm determination overlying the fear and concern. She nodded wordlessly. House was lucky to have such a good friend.

A discreet cough behind her drew her attention back to the patiently waiting detectives and reminded her of her other responsibilities – this was her hospital and it was reeling under the repercussions of the events in the clinic. She was needed.

She saw understanding in Wilson's eyes and felt a moment of relief that he was here, that she could hand over the care and the worry about House to the one person who cared about him most. He would look after House.. and let her look after the hospital.

"Go," he told her. "Go deal with things – I'll stay with him."

No thanks were needed; they understood each other perfectly without the need for words. Once again their shared concern for House bound them together, made them more than just colleagues and friends. Lisa smiled a tremulous smile, "Keep me informed James."

* * *

Dr James Wilson felt as though time had stopped. It seemed as though the world had spun backwards and the intervening years had disappeared.. and here he was, once again, sitting helplessly by his friend's hospital bed.

Thinking back to the last time they'd been here, Wilson couldn't help but make comparisons – and the years had not been kind to his friend. Behind the ever-present stubble, Greg's face was drawn and thin. Years of pain had etched deep lines into that face, lines which even the relaxation of unconsciousness could not erase. Following the x-ray and ultrasound, House had been dressed in a hospital gown and the dried blood had been cleaned from his face but the ugly bruise on his right temple was a stark reminder of the violent attack that had brought him to the ICU.

And now all Wilson could do was sit here amidst the familiar trappings of the hospital, the steady beep of the heart monitor, the glowing screen showing the readout from the pulse-ox monitor. Sit here and wait for House to wake up. His stomach twisted with fear for his friend – fear, and a slowly burning anger that someone could walk into a hospital, a place of healing, and wreak violence and destruction. That someone could deliberately hurt his friend.

For all that House tried his best to distance himself from people, to antagonise and alienate, to push people away, Wilson knew another side to the man. He was one of very few who saw past the carefully constructed defences House had built – one of the few who House allowed to get anywhere near to close to him. He knew the depth of House's commitment to his work, to his patients. He had seen the many occasions where House had stayed at the hospital for days, barely sleeping as he fought desperately to solve the puzzle, to find the correct diagnosis, to save another life. He had also been there the nights when House had sunk into despondency, berating himself for not finding the answer in time, for not being able to do enough, turning events over and over in his mind, seeking fruitlessly for something he could have done, something he could have tried that might have resulted in a different outcome.

The people who thought House didn't care about his patients were the people who didn't know the man, who saw only what House wanted them to see – the angry, bitter, thoughtless cripple. Which, Wilson conceded with a wry smile, was just about everyone. House was, after all, a brilliant, clever man who gave 100 percent to everything he set his hand to – and that included offending people.

Wilson wondered what the man who had done this to House had thought of him. Or if he'd even thought of him at all as he had unleashed his fury on him.

Hours seemed to have passed since James had walked into the private room in radiology where Foreman was supervising the ultrasound of House's abdomen. His watch told him it has been barely fifteen minutes yet in those fifteen minutes his world seemed to have been turned upside down. Cuddy had tried to prepare him, he realised. She'd listed the injuries, she'd told him House looked bad but none of it had really hit home until he walked into that room and was faced with the reality of what had been done to his friend.

The first thing he'd noticed was that they'd cut through House's t-shirt and his immediate thought was how pissed off House was gonna be when he woke up. That t-shirt was one of his favourites. Some rational, clinical part of his brain had noted that he was probably in shock, that dwelling on inconsequential details was a defence mechanism to protect him from absorbing what the shredded t-shirt revealed.

House lay pale and still on the gurney and that same clinical part of Wilson's mind noted absently that his friend's torso was too thin, that he hadn't been looking after himself properly – again. Then all rational thought seemed to stop as he saw the mass of bruising beginning to mottle the skin all across House's torso and abdomen. All the breath in his body seemed to leave him in one whispered exhalation, "Jesus…"

And then Foreman had been beside him, talking to him, reciting clinical details, forcing him to detach from the emotion and focus on the medicine. The ultrasound looked clean and they were ready to move House to the ICU and for a while he was able to distract himself in minutiae, keeping busy with the mechanics of the transfer. Then the orderly had reached to pick up House's cane and Wilson had heard his voice crack as he'd said, too sharply, "No."

He'd swallowed and forced a calmness he didn't feel into his voice.

"Leave that," he'd said. "I'll bring it."

And now he sat here in a sterile hospital room, listening to the steady beeps that told him his friend was still alive, the cane still clutched in his hands. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there like that, lost in his painful thoughts, when he was snapped out of his reverie by a sound from the bed. For a moment he thought he'd imagined it but then it came again, a faint sound almost lost amidst the chiming of the heart monitor; the smallest of moans.

He was on his feet in an instant, the cane clattering forgotten to the floor as he moved quickly to the bed, hope and fear equally evident in his voice.

"House?"

* * *

_TBC..._


	5. Chapter 5

_The angst continues... reviews and constructive criticism welcomed, as always. Thanks muchly to those who've provided some really great advice and feedback on previous chapters.. you know who you are._

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**In Self Defence - Chapter 5**

The first thing House was aware of was pain. He was used to pain. He lived with it every day, it was a part of life, part of existing; a familiar companion who walked at his side from the moment he awoke until he escaped into sleep. House knew pain.

But this, this was different. This was not the old familiar pain he carried with him every day. This was not the constant, grinding ache of damaged nerves, not the slow, inevitable build up from background hum to sharp, discordant shriek that only Vicodin could relieve. This was sudden and all-encompassing, a wave of dark heat that washed over him, wrapping itself around him in a suffocating cloak.

There was only darkness and pain. He was on fire with it, every cell in his body screamed, firing bursts of electricity up his spinal cord into his brain, telling the brain they were damaged, triggering a warning response that the body interpreted as aching, grinding, shooting, screaming, goddamn pain. Messages from a myriad pain receptors flooded his brain, colliding and tripping over each other until he couldn't tell where the pain originated. It was everywhere, he was tangled in it, unable to think around the relentless onslaught of sensation. He tried to speak, to scream, to give voice to the agony but he couldn't hear through the roaring in his head, the awful cacophony of pain receptors firing over and over and over again.

Awareness leaked in around the edges of the pain and he struggled to make sense of his surroundings. His eyelids felt heavy and stiff, his limbs weighed down by some invisible force. He became aware of sounds; an incessant, shrill beeping that echoed around his skull, ringing in his ears. And all the while the relentless pain snapped and snarled at him, scrambling his thoughts, making him dizzy and nauseous. He tried instinctively to move and felt the air rush from his lungs as the pain spiked, hot and angry.

For a moment he thought he heard a sound, a voice that sounded familiar, and then he was suddenly blinded; glaring light shining in his eyes. He cringed instinctively, trying to pull back from the intrusive glare, and the movement left him gasping. He couldn't think through the pain, couldn't separate the thought process from the pain process… all he could do was feel. And all he could feel was pain.

* * *

"House?"

Wilson leaned anxiously over the bed. He felt almost sick from the wave of relief that washed over him at the realisation that his friend was finally regaining consciousness.

"House? Can you hear me? Its Wilson…"

He frowned, not liking what he saw. House was sluggish and confused, his eyes still firmly shut as he stirred restlessly. Even as he watched, his friend's breath hitched painfully and Wilson saw the shudder pass through House's thin frame, a light sweat breaking out across his forehead. A shrill beep from the heart monitor warned of a sudden rise in heart rate.

"House?"

His mouth set grimly, Wilson pulled his penlight from the pocket of his lab-coat and, as gently as he could, lifted first one eyelid then the other, quickly checking for pupil reactions. House's response was immediate, flinching away from the light, the movement drawing a strangled cry from his lips. Wilson was relieved to find both pupils equal and reactive, a good sign. Less encouraging though was House's obvious confusion and pain.

Loathe to leave his friend for any longer than was necessary, Wilson grabbed the chart from the foot of the bed and was writing up orders for pain medication in a hasty scrawl even as he half walked, half ran to the nurse's station. He practically threw the chart to the nearest nurse before grabbing the phone and dialling the extension for the diagnostics department from memory.

The conversation was short and to the point. "Foreman? It's Wilson. I need you here. Now."

It was rare that the charming, unassuming Dr Wilson threw his authority around – but when he did, people were wise to respond in a timely manner. Wilson was actually quite impressed that Foreman had made it down from the fourth floor in under three minutes – he suspected the neurologist had forgone the wait for an elevator and had simply ran down the stairs. Nonetheless, by the time he arrived in the ICU the nurses had already started House on an IV saline drip and Wilson had a syringe of pain medication already drawn and ready to use.

House was still half-conscious, reacting to external stimuli but refusing to open his eyes. His breathing was rapid and shallow and his body shook frequently as spasms of pain caused his muscles to tense involuntarily. The brief three minutes it had taken Foreman to arrive had seemed like years as Wilson stood helplessly by, watching his friend tremble with pain. He couldn't imagine what the expression on his face looked like when Foreman entered House's room, all he knew was that the neurologist took one quick look at him and moved immediately to tend to House, no words needing to be spoken.

Wilson watched impatiently as Foreman checked House's vitals, mirroring the actions he himself had already taken. Rationale and logic told him that thoroughness was a good thing and that these procedures shouldn't be rushed but the need to take action, to do something to help his friend was overwhelming. Anxiety formed into an unbearable tightness in his chest and he had to remind himself to breathe slowly and calmly. He fought the urge to tell Foreman to hurry the hell up, flinching when House groaned quietly, another shudder wracking his battered body.

"Dr House? Dr House!" Foreman spoke loudly, frowning at the lack of response. "How long has he been like this?" he questioned.

Wilson glanced at his watch and shook his head wearily.

"Almost ten minutes." he replied. "He's conscious but I can't rouse him properly. He's in a lot of pain.. his injuries…" he gestured helplessly at the bed, the loaded syringe heavy in his hand.

Foreman nodded solemnly and, much as House and his fellow antagonised each other a great deal of the time, Wilson saw in Foreman's carefully schooled features a measure of empathy for House's condition.

"You know we can't give him anything until he's had a full neurological assessment?"

Wilson tipped his head in acknowledgement, his voice tight as he carefully and deliberately laid the syringe down within easy reach. "Then let's get on with it."

* * *

Loud voices jolted him from a fever-dream of red agony. Sensation filtered through the wash of pain, hands touching him, jostling him. He tried to tell them to leave him alone but his throat felt tight and raw and all that emerged was an unintelligible mumble.

_"Come on House, it's Wilson. I need you to open your eyes for me."_

Wilson. He knew that name, that voice. Yes. Wilson. He tried to focus but the pain ripped through him, scattering thought and comprehension.

_"Open your eyes House!"_

A different voice. He knew that voice too. That voice had a name…

_"House? Open your eyes."_

Sensation. Touch. Pain. Fingertips on his face. Pain roaring through him.

Light. Glaring, blinding, painful light as his eyelid was peeled back. Images too bright for him to take in, colours blurring and moving together. Pain roiled through him, stealing away his breath, trampling his consciousness, squeezing his eyes shut in an involuntary grimace. He was wrapped in pain, sinking beneath the surface till it swallowed him completely.

_"HOUSE!"_

Jesus. So loud. What? Wilson? He latched onto that solitary thought and clung to it as the waves of pain washed over and around him, threatening to sweep him away. He licked dry lips and tried to force a sound from his aching throat. "Wilson?"

_"Yes House. It's Wilson. Open your eyes House."_

His eyelids felt like lead. It took hours, days, years of concentrated effort to raise them. The sudden light flared red against his retinas, making his head swim. Pain skittered along raw nerves. He squinted into the light. "Wilson?"

_"Hey there. You had us worried."_

Colours seeped in as his eyes adjusted to the light. Green. More green. Oh god… pain made his muscles tense and quiver. Focus, dammit. Green. Ceiling?

Something blocked out the green. A face. "Wilson"

_"I'm here House. Do you know where you are?"_

He swallowed thickly. Thoughts slipped away from him like sand running through his fingers. Pain bit and snarled angrily. Green. Green ceiling.

"Ngghh. Hospital?" Was that his voice? It sounded faint, hoarse.

_"Do you know what day it is?"_ The other voice. Foreman. He fought to focus. Yes, Foreman. What was the question?

"Day?" he mumbled. "It's today.." His head was swimming. Pain thrummed through him.

That was Foreman. Foreman was talking again.

_"Oriented to time and place. Sorta…"_

Oh. Not talking to him. Good.

He gritted his teeth as fresh pain trembled his limbs. He felt disorientated, nauseous; the voices talking over him were distant, disembodied. Fingers gripped his and someone told him to squeeze. He could feel himself slipping away again, the angry riptide of pain pulling him under, overturning conscious thought.

Fingers snapped in front of his nose, jerking him back to the here and now. He grumbled apathetically, trying to follow instructions, counting blurred appendages, answering random questions. And the pain was his constant companion, wrapping itself around and over and through him, scraping its nails down his nerve strands, snarling and shrieking in his head.

The voices overhead were fading. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on the words.

_"Confusion"_

_"Disorientation"_

_"Blurred vision"_

_"Concussion"_

Random syllables that meant nothing. Abstract concepts floating on a red sea of pain. He felt cold and hot at the same time. His body was not his to control; it trembled and shivered and screamed.

He felt so tired. The constant ache of pain sapped the strength from his limbs. Overwhelmed with constant sensation, he wished for nothing more than oblivion - absence of sensation, absence of thought, sheer, pure nothingness.

A new sensation washed through him. It flowed outward from his left arm.. a cooling tide that left a shiver in its wake, followed by a sweet, delicious numbness. It crept insidiously into each and every cell in his body, slicing through the burning fire of pain, settling heavily over frayed nerves and aching muscles. Slowly but surely, pain receptors stopped firing. The red tide of agony receded, left him limp and exhausted on the edge of a deep and comforting darkness. It was the most delicious sensation he'd ever known. He felt inexpressibly heavy, his body weighed a thousand tons and the weight was pulling him deeper and deeper into darkness. The absence of pain allowed him a moment of clarity and he knew who had he could thank for this sweet release. He murmured his thanks, a single word, a last sigh of gratitude as the warm darkness closed over his head, swallowing him whole; "Wilson…"

* * *

James Wilson stood for a moment with the empty syringe still in his hand. He watched as House's eyelids grew heavy and finally closed over clouded blue eyes. With a sigh he turned and dropped the used syringe in the sharps box. He thought he heard a whisper from the bed, a murmured exhalation of breath, but when he checked House was out for the count. Wilson collapsed more than sat in the armchair beside the bed, feeling more exhausted than he could remember being in a long time. He stretched his legs out and felt his feet bump against something on the floor. Leaning forward, he reached down and retrieved House's cane from under the chair. He sat for a moment turning the smooth wood of the cane in his grip, his face unreadable. Then he planted the cane solidly in front of the chair and rested his forhead wearily on the polished handle.

With a shaky breath, James Wilson closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the passing of time.

* * *

_TBC..._


	6. Chapter 6

_Wow, this turned into quite a long chapter! Sorry for the delay in updating – but never fear, Chapter 6 is here! Another chapter with not much actually happening but an awful lot of introspection – mostly on the part of Wilson and with a little Cuddy thrown in for good measure._

_Reviews and constructive criticism much appreciated, as ever.

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**In Self Defence – Chapter Six**

Wilson was slumped in the armchair next to House's bed, staring absently into space, when Dr Cameron quietly pushed open the door and stood hesitantly in the doorway. He snapped out of his reverie with a start and gestured for the young immunologist to enter.

She moved into the room with exaggerated care, stopping to close the door carefully behind her. She looked anxiously towards the bed, "Is he…?"

"It's fine," he reassured her. "He's out for the count. With the pain meds he's on he's not going to be waking up for a while."

Cameron breathed a small sigh of relief, moving to stand by the bed, her eyes irresistibly drawn to the motionless figure of her boss. Wilson held his tongue, watching the play of emotions across her expressive face as she was confronted for the first time with the reality of House's injuries. He knew Foreman had informed the other members of the diagnostic team of what had happened in the clinic as soon as they were through settling House into the ICU but, even so, seeing House looking so beaten and lost was disturbing. It brought home how vulnerable the human body was, how even the mighty, caustic Dr House was, underneath the anger, the bitterness, the armour-plating of biting sarcasm, still just a man – a man who could be hurt. Seeing him like this made the violence shockingly real, he knew that from his own experience.

Cameron's face mirrored the odd mixture of hope, fear and anger that he himself felt and, sitting there at his friend's bedside, he felt a kind of connection to the young woman. No matter what she may have told House to the contrary, Wilson suspected she still had feelings for her boss and, awful as it was to see anyone the victim of such random violence, it was immeasurably harder to deal with when the person injured and in pain was someone you cared about.

"Dr Cuddy asked me to check on things for her. She's still stuck in the clinic with the police.." Cameron's voice trailed off as she looked helplessly at House's still form.

"How is he?" she asked plaintively.

Wilson rose from the armchair, his face sombre as he moved to join her beside House's bed. Somehow he knew Cameron wasn't asking about House's medical condition – she could see his injuries for herself, could read his chart for the diagnosis. Standing there beside her, looking down at the bruised, unconscious face of his closest friend, he felt a moment of relief at having someone with whom to share the burden of caring about this brilliant, difficult man.

"He's in a lot of pain," he told her quietly, "He took one hell of a beating."

"He was pretty confused when he came around, I think partly from the pain but there's a neurological component too – he's got a nasty concussion. We couldn't really get much sense out of him, we just ran through the neuro checks and medicated him as soon as we could."

He tore his gaze from the bed to see the glint of moisture in Cameron's eyes, empathy for House's pain evident on her face. She cares so much, he found himself thinking, about everything, every patient. He wondered how a soul that cared that deeply could withstand the cruel losses that were such a part of the medical profession – how she came into work each day with her spirit unbroken. Cameron, he suspected, was a lot stronger than any of them – even House – had realised.

He wished for a moment that House could awake and see the empathy in her gaze – and recognise it for what it was. Not sympathy, not the pity he detested and resented so much, but true empathy; the ability to put oneself into someone else's situation and understand and accept it. Sympathy was feeling sorry for someone, empathy was understanding someone, accepting them, supporting them. In his anger and frustration at the world House, whose sharp insight cut through pretence, who placed such value in truth, who usually saw things so much more clearly than anyone else, had lost the ability to differentiate between the two. The thought saddened Wilson.

Cameron was silent as she gazed at House, her hand moving almost unconsciously to wipe the tears from her eyes, and Wilson felt a stab of – what was that? Jealousy? Guilt? He realised that all of them, himself, Cuddy, Foreman, had been so focused on staying in control, acting professionally, dealing with the practicalities of the situation, that they had pushed away their fear and sorrow, blocked off their emotions in order to be better doctors to House. Cameron, with her open, too-trusting nature, was the only one who had let herself be upset, allowed herself to feel the emotions that were all too natural in this situation. So yes, he envied her. Yes, he felt guilty that he hadn't shed so much as a tear for his injured friend. And yet he also recognised that being practical was as much a coping mechanism as Cameron's tears. Intellectually he knew that House was doing as well as he was because his colleagues, his _friends_, had been able to act decisively and not give in to emotion. They had done as they had been trained and had been doctors first, friends second. And he knew the tears would come. The shock and fear was not gone, not forgotten, only pushed aside for the moment – later, when the crisis had passed, when he had time to himself, that would be the time to cry for his friend.

There was the smallest of tremors in Cameron's voice as she asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "What on earth happened!"

Wilson sighed heavily, pushing back the anger and the fear, slipping once again into the role of the practical one, the one everyone could rely on. A part of him knew the question was rhetorical, as much an expression of disbelief that this had happened as a real desire to know more. Everyone who had seen the results of the attack, every member of staff who had treated and looked after House, including himself, had expressed a similar sentiment as the reality of the day's events hit home. But he had to remember that he wasn't the only one who cared about House, the only one who had been affected by this attack. And, as ever, people turned to him to translate, to make sense of House.

House would probably be astounded to know how much people did care about him, about his welfare. Over the last five years he had done an excellent job of keeping people at a distance, never letting anyone get close enough to hurt him. And so the people who cared for him had learnt to hide their concern, their affection, or risk being pushed away. Even Wilson himself, House's closest – some would say only – friend, knew there were limits to how far his friend would let him in. Care too much, push too hard, and House would shut down, shut him out, wall himself off from any spark of real emotion.. even Wilson was no longer sure if it was because House mistook concern for unwanted pity or because he feared that, if he once let himself feel, really feel, again, he might get hurt again. After five years, and despite all the walls and defences House had built for himself, the man's wounds were as raw and fresh as ever and Wilson suspected that House feared, as he himself did, that one more blow would break him – for good.

Cameron had learnt this the hard way. She had pushed too hard, had let House know she had feelings for him, and he had lashed out, pushing her away before things could develop further. House had never told Wilson exactly what had happened on that one and only date but he knew Greg… and he knew that, since that night, Cameron had stopped pushing. She had learnt, like he had, like Cuddy had, to hide her feelings from House.

"We still don't know any more than what Foreman told you." He explained gently. "It seems House was attacked by a clinic patient but we've no idea why or even exactly when. The police are out looking for him."

His gaze was drawn back to Greg, to the ugly bruise on his temple, to how utterly still he lay in his drug-induced sleep, only the slow, faint rise and fall of his chest giving any indication of life.

"We won't really know any more until they catch him – or until House is conscious enough to tell us what happened."

She nodded almost absently, her gaze still lingering on the still figure of Dr House, concern evident on her face.

"I'd better go and give Dr Cuddy an update," she said quietly. She lifted her eyes to Wilson and gave him a brief smile, "She tries not to show it but she's worried about him."

He stood there, a medical professional in a hospital room, surrounded by the apparatus of his profession, and had never felt more out of place, more lost. "We all are," he told her.

Cameron turned back as she reached the door, her expression as open and sincere as ever as she spoke, "If there's anything I can do, you'll let me know?"

Wilson's smile was all the reply she needed and, with a last glance the slumbering House, she turned and was gone.

* * *

It took Cuddy more than three hours to deal with the aftermath of the afternoon's events in the clinic. Word of the attack had spread like wildfire throughout the hospital and she had spent as much of her time fire-fighting and soothing fears as she had dealing with the police investigation. The board were up in arms, the trustees were anxious and she'd had no less than six of the hospital's major donors calling her up to demand explanations and reassurance. By the time 6.00 pm rolled around she felt like she'd run a marathon, in heels. Twice.

And, aside from one short update from Dr Cameron, she'd had no chance to check in on Dr House. She knew Wilson would oversee his care and would have paged her if there was any change but that didn't stop her from worrying.. and Cameron's report of concussion was an added concern.

The police had completed their investigations at the hospital and the detectives had left, promising to contact her as soon as they had any developments. She had sent a detail of cleaning staff to deal with the chaos in Exam Room 1 and, for the first time all afternoon, she was alone with no phone calls, no questions, no demands for her presence, no interruptions. From her desk she could see the clinic through the glass office doors and a shiver ran down her spine. With no distractions to occupy her mind, the reality of the awful violence that had taken place mere yards away overwhelmed her. For a moment she couldn't breathe as her mind replayed the heart-dropping, sickening moment when she had opened that door and seen him; seen House lying on the floor, so helpless and so very, very still. A sudden sob escaped her, loud in the stillness of the office, startling her. She pressed a hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears well, shock and panic threatening to overwhelm her. She sat alone at her desk and struggled for control.

Breathing slow and deep she swallowed her tears, wiping angrily at her eyes with hands that shook slightly. Dammit, this is going to help, she told herself. She stood up abruptly, feeling restless and ill at ease, needing to do something, anything, other than sit and dwell. She took a minute to compose herself, to push aside the fear and anger and concentrate on the here and now. There was only one place she needed and wanted to be right now.

The hospital was quiet at this time of the day; all the admin staff and technicians had left for the day along with those of the medical staff who were not on the rotation for evening or night shift. The ICU was busier than the rest of the hospital, a full nursing staff being maintained around the clock, but the corridors still felt empty without the usual compliment of visitors and ancillary staff. She paused briefly outside House's room, taking a moment to breathe deeply and slowly, feeling her control stretched thin and tight over the day's emotions. She pushed open the door and stepped carefully inside.

The first thing she saw was the bed. The lights had been dimmed in the room – a thoughtful nurse perhaps? – and House lay still and silent in the gloom, his skin looking sallow in the faint light of the gently-beeping monitors. The second thing she saw was Wilson. He was slumped low in the armchair, legs stretched out in front of him, one ankle resting atop the other, hands linked across his stomach, his head tipped back and to the side. He was fast asleep. Cuddy couldn't help a small smile, perhaps the first real smile she'd had all afternoon, she thought. Wilson looked utterly exhausted – and he was going to have one heck of a sore neck when he woke up.

Wilson didn't move as she picked up House's chart and reviewed the notations, her forehead creasing into an unconscious frown as she noted Foreman's neurological findings and Wilson's prescribing instructions. She bit her lip as she replaced the chart and moved alongside the bed, her eyes taking in every detail of the man lying there so still and peaceful. He seemed relaxed – he should be given the dosage Wilson had prescribed – and deeply asleep, his head tilted slightly to one side. His eyes were closed and his breathing regular.

She checked the readings from the monitors and then, on an impulse, she leant over the bed and repeated her actions of a few, short hours ago, pressing her fingers to the cool skin of his neck, pleased to find his pulse strong and regular, if a little slow. Fishing out her penlight, she lifted an eyelid and was not surprised to find the pupil constricted and the reaction somewhat impaired. House didn't react to the light – he was really out of it. She shivered a little to think of the pain he must have been in and what it had been like for Wilson to have to see him suffer that way.

Her train of thought brought her gaze back to Wilson, still soundly asleep in the armchair. She considered waking him but knew even if she did he wouldn't go home, he'd stay here with House until Greg awoke. She knew the ICU nurses were perfectly competent to monitor House's concussion but she had to admit she was glad of Wilson's devotion to his friend.

She suddenly felt at a loss. There was nothing for her to do here. House was as stable as could be expected, Wilson looked like he was out for the count, the nurses would monitor things and wake Wilson and page her if anything changed. Monitoring was all that could be done until House woke up and could communicate with them. She really should go home herself but for some reason the thought of her large, empty house, warm and comfortable though it was, was not an appealing one. She made herself take a deep, calming breath as she thought back to the panic that had threatened to overwhelm her as she sat alone in her office. She looked between the bed and the armchair and her two colleagues sleeping soundly and she thought "To hell with it."

Dean of Medicine or no, right now, this one evening, she didn't want to be alone.

Ten minutes later, Lisa Cuddy was curled up almost comfortably in the second armchair she'd had an orderly bring into the room, her shoes abandoned on the floor and her stockinged feet tucked under her. The steady beep of the heart monitor was a comforting sound as she closed her eyes to the dim light of the ICU room. A wave of weariness washed over her and she realised dully how tightly wound she had let herself become over the course of the day. She let tiredness carry her into relaxation and before she knew it she was lulled to sleep to the accompaniment of the slow, constant beep – beep – beep of the monitors.

* * *

_TBC..._


	7. Chapter 7

_Poor old House is having a rough time of things… I hate to be so mean to him… but I kinda like it too.. wink_

_Please review and let me know what you think…

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**In Self Defence - Chapter 7**

It was dark when House awoke. He floated slowly up to consciousness, feeling warm and detached, oddly muffled. A persistent lethargy stayed with him, weighing down his eyelids, his limbs. Moving seemed far too much effort so he lay still, absorbing sensations.. starched cotton sheets beneath him, the tight, pulling sensation of tape on the skin of his left elbow, a steady beeping from a monitor somewhere near his head. Hospital. In a bed, in hospital. Shit. His body felt foreign, an immovable object over which he had no control. Muscles felt stiff and rebellious.

It took all his effort to open his eyes and he immediately wished he hadn't; his vision blurred and swam and a dizzy nausea turned his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe through the queasiness, panting shallowly. His head began to throb dully. He must have made a noise because a moment later he felt a cool hand on his forehead and a familiar voice spoke from nearby.

"House?"

He swallowed thickly, his mouth dry, and it took him two attempts to respond; his voice sounded dry and cracked with disuse.

"Wilson?"

"Hey," A note of relief was evident is his friend's voice. "How you feeling?"

House tried to concentrate on breathing. "Sick," he mumbled shortly.

There was another voice in the background, too low to make out through the pounding in his ears. His head was starting to feel like it was clamped in a vice. His stomach churned and he groaned, his body trying instinctively to curl up. The movement brought a sharp stab of pain that lanced through his chest, leaving him gasping.

Firm hands pressed his shoulders back against the bed.

"Hold still, House," Wilson's voice soothed, "We're getting you something for the nausea."

We? House lay trembling on the stiff cotton sheets, fighting the urge to hug his unruly stomach and wondering dizzily who the other person in the room was.

He was dimly aware of a tug against the tight sensation of tape at his left elbow. Must be an IV line, he thought. Someone holding the line. Probably swabbing the port for an injection. He tried to concentrate on medical procedures, on diagnosing his surroundings, anything but the awful swimming sensation in his head and his gut. He felt awful. The stabbing pain in his chest had subsided to a dull ache that seemed to throb in time with his head. He felt bile rising and choked out a curse, aware of Wilson's hands hurriedly turning him to the side, and suddenly every muscle in his body seemed to protest the sudden movement.

He heaved painfully, his eyes clenched shut, and hoped someone had had time to grab a basin. The muscles in his abdomen shivered and trembled painfully and sharp fire lanced through his chest as he retched and spat again, the taste of bile sour in his mouth. The effort left him gasping; the pain in his chest was fierce enough to take his breath away. He spat again, weakly. There was nothing left in his stomach to bring up but his body didn't seem to care, his muscles convulsing regardless, sending him into painful, fruitless heaving that shot darts of pain through his right side. He gritted his teeth but couldn't suppress a groan.

Wilson's voice was heavy with concern, "Easy House, I've got you. Just hang in there."

His voice was muffled slightly as he turned his head to speak to someone else. House dimly caught the words "painkillers" and "dosage" and heard a murmured reply. Who was that!

He could hear himself panting, his breath coming in painful gasps, as the urge to retch finally subsided. His ribs were throbbing angrily with every breath. He felt Wilson's hands gently roll him back over until he once again lay on his back against the firm mattress, his eyes still clenched shut against the dizziness and nausea.

"The anti-emetic should be kicking in soon House, you'll feel better in a moment."

He tried to nod but the motion made his head swim so he forced a muttered "Mkay" through parched lips. His ribs ached and his head was pounding and it felt like every muscle in his body was tired and sore. He was pretty sure he'd never felt this miserable in his entire life. He lay still and tried to concentrate on just breathing, just existing, doing his best to shut out pain, nausea, sensation, to just deal with one minute at a time.. and, when that one was done, to concentrate on dealing with the next one.

He had no idea how long he'd been lying there, breathing slowly and carefully, when Wilson's voice startled him out of his daze.

"House? You feeling any better?"

He gave the question cautious consideration. He still felt stiff and vaguely sore but the pounding in his head had lessened and, thankfully, the dizziness and nausea seemed to have gone.

"House?" Concerned. Concerned about him. He swallowed.

"Yeah. I'm here.." his throat still felt dry and raspy and he shocked to hear how.. how weak his voice sounded.

He decided to risk opening his eyes.

The room was gloomy and he struggled to focus; his vision at least wasn't swimming the way it had previously but it still felt kinda blurred…. he blinked owlishly and tried to force his eyes to focus and only succeeded in making his headache worse.

"Hey,"

He could hear the smile in Wilson's voice. He turned his head gingerly to the left and found his friend standing beside the bed and House's vision was not so blurred that he couldn't see the worry in those expressive brown eyes.

"Nice to have you back with us."

"Wasn't aware I'd gone anywhere." Not quite up to his usual standard of riposte but then, he wasn't exactly feeling at the top of his game right now. He chanced lifting his head enough to check out his surroundings a little – hospital bed, hospital gown, IV taped to his left arm, saline drip, pulse-ox monitor.. Cuddy?

She was stood at the foot of the bed, her face sombre. Was that who he'd heard talking with Wilson? He let his head fall back onto the pillow, his energy exhausted after mere moments.

"Dr Cuddy," he addressed the ceiling, "come to check up on me?"

He heard her laugh shortly. "Yeah. Something like that."

The sound of high heels on tiled floor brought her round to the side of the bed, where he could see her. He frowned, squinting his eyes to try and focus. She looked.. pale, tired.. worried. Her hair wasn't its usual sleekly styled perfection and if he didn't know better he'd say she'd slept in her make up. He caught her glancing over at Wilson and began to feel somewhat at a disadvantage with the two of them looming over him on either side of the bed.

Attack is the best form of defence. "You look terrible," he informed Cuddy. Woulda had a bit more bite if his voice hadn't sounded so damned tired and dry. She replied with that infuriatingly calm smile that she seemed to reserve just for annoying him.

"Yeah well, sleeping in an armchair will do that for you."

He closed his eyes. The blurring in his eyesight was making his head ache again. God he felt so tired….

"Why are you sleeping in armchairs?" he muttered drowsily.

There was a silence in the room so heavy it seemed to have a personality all its own. House opened his eyes suspiciously and caught Cuddy and Wilson exchanging significant glances over the width of his hospital bed.

"Stop that!" he snapped, feeling anger surge adrenalin through his system, pushing back the sleepy feeling…he narrowed his eyes, tried to focus on the IV line in his arm, "What's going on? What did you give me!" He glared at Wilson.

"House…"

They were making him nervous, hovering over him with their concerned faces and their furtive looks. He reached his right arm over towards the IV line and cried out as the motion twisted his torso, pulling at the right side of his body and sending a sharp stab of pain through him that left him gasping and shaking, dark spots crowding at the edge of his vision. Wilson's hands were on his shoulders once more, holding him still against the bed, and James' blurred face loomed over him.

"Lie still, House," he said firmly. "You've got a concussion and…"

There was an uncomfortable moment where Wilson seemed to be weighing up what to say next.

"Do you know where you are?" he asked carefully.

House gritted his teeth against the subsiding ache in his chest and spat out an irritated answer.

"In a hospital bed, and from the delightful shade of green on the ceiling I'd say somewhere on the 2nd floor at PPTH. Now will you get off me!"

Wilson let go of him slowly, as if expecting him to do something rash, and his voice was cautious as he asked, "Do you know how you got here?"

"Of course, I…"

House stopped, his words tailing off as he stopped to consider the question. A vague feeling of disquiet settled somewhere around his stomach as he tried to think back, tried to remember how he had got a concussion, tried to remember being admitted to hospital, tried to remember… everything was fuzzy, distorted. He grimaced, his head pounding.

"House?" the concern in Cuddy's voice was palpable as she leant over the bed. He stared at the ceiling in confusion.

"I don't…" he muttered, "I don't remember.."

He lowered his eyes to see Cuddy unconsciously biting her lower lip as she shared a significant look with Wilson. He suddenly felt ridiculously tired, his anger draining away leaving him heavy with lethargy.

"Stop mooning at each other across the bed," he snapped half-heartedly. "Whatever it is, just tell me."

"What do you remember?" Cuddy asked.

He sighed, his eyes closing. He felt strangely detached; his body lay heavily on the bed, his muscles feeling loose and tired, without strength. He tried to concentrate.

"Clinic. I remember the clinic."

"Do you remember what happened in the clinic?" Wilson's voice. Tight with tension, holding something back.

House frowned. He remembered being in the clinic. He remembered waking up here. He tried to focus. Nothing. It was a struggle to open his eyes and his lips seemed to stumble over his words.

"I… I don't know, James."

Some distant part of his brain told him he should be concerned, should be scared that there was a hole in his consciousness, a gap in his memory. He frowned at Wilson.

"What did you give me?" he demanded sleepily.

"Painkillers. Stay with me, House" Wilson's voice was urgent. "Do you remember being attacked in the clinic?"

"What?" He fought against the pervasive lethargy. "No, I… I don't know."

Wilson sighed heavily, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck in an almost unconscious gesture that House knew far too well.

"Spit it out, Jimmy.." he commanded tiredly, "How much trouble am I in?"

"Oh, you've outdone yourself this time," Wilson half-laughed, and House could hear the concern behind the deliberately light-hearted tone of voice. "You've got a nice bump to the head and a concussion to go along with it, 3 broken ribs and what's gonna be a whole lot of really nasty bruising."

The levity fell from his voice. "You really can't remember any of this?"

House shook his head carefully. Whatever Wilson had dosed him with was really doing a number on him. "Why the mega-dose meds?"

Wilson's face was sombre.

"Do you remember waking up earlier? Me and Foreman running you through the neuro checks?"

House frowned. He guessed Wilson figured his silence was answer enough because he carried on talking.

"You were pretty out of it, we couldn't get much sense out of you," Wilson turned his head away, and it was a moment before he continued, "and you were in… a lot of pain."

Wilson let out a long breath before turning his gaze to meet House's and, blurred vision or not, he could clearly see the fear and anger in his friends eyes.

"I gave you a high enough dose to knock you out for a good while. When you woke up and started feeling sick, moving about so much aggravated your injuries so, along with the anti-emetic, I gave you some more painkillers."

House nodded slowly.

"Feels like enough to knock out a rhino," he complained without any real heat.

Cuddy's laugh startled him. He'd almost forgotten she was there.

"I've always said you were thick-skinned, House" she jibed.

He was pretty sure he shouldn't let her get away unscathed after a comment like that but he felt so darn tired he doubted he could string a sentence together, let alone one of his carefully constructed insults. His eyelids started to drift.

"House," he jerked back to awareness at Wilson's voice. "Think you can stay awake long enough for me to run through the neuro checks?"

He did his best to fight the deliciously creeping lethargy that stole into his muscles and seeped into his bones. Wilson shone lights in his eyes and Cuddy asked him questions and he counted digits and squeezed fingers and did his level best to concentrate. There was no pain now, not even from his leg; all the aches and pains and dizziness were gone and he just felt heavy; tired.

His let his eyes slide closed and lay still, enjoying the rare, sweet absence of pain. He was vaguely aware of their footsteps moving away from the bed and the murmur of conversation. The odd word or phrase floated back to him through the haze;

"memory loss";

"blurred vision should clear up shortly";

"get a CT scan?";

"just to be sure";

"let the police know".

He let himself drift on the sea of their words as he slipped gently into sleep.

* * *

_TBC…_


	8. Chapter 8

_Wilson and Cuddy introspection galore! Hope you like – more to follow soon. _

_Please review – feedback makes me write faster!__ -Grin-

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**In Self Defence – Chapter 8**

It occurred to Wilson as he and Cuddy quietly discussed House's condition that, concussed or not, his friend had been right about one thing – the usually immaculate Dr Cuddy looked a mess. Looked in fact as though she'd spent the last 6 hours or so sleeping in an armchair. He couldn't help but wonder if he looked equally as dishevelled.

He'd been bemused, but not entirely surprised, to find her curled up in a second armchair when he'd been awoken in the gloomy early hours of the morning. For a moment he'd been disoriented, unsure of where he was or why he'd woken, then his eyes had fallen on the sleeping figure of Lisa Cuddy and the memory of the events that had brought them both to the ICU the previous day had turned his attention to the bed where he'd found House rigid and trembling, his eyes screwed shut and his breath coming in a rapid, ragged panting.

His relief at finding his friend awake and able to communicate had been tempered by House's obvious discomfort. The dose of pain medication he'd been given was enough to keep him comfortable for a short while yet but any movement was bound to aggravate his injuries and increase his pain. House had looked ashen, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he struggled to breathe through pain and nausea. Concerned with caring for House, Wilson hadn't even realised Lisa had woken up until he'd heard the door open and turned to see her giving instructions to a summoned nurse and he had felt a surge of gratitude for her ability to assess a given situation and instantly take charge and take action. It made her an excellent administrator – and a damn good doctor.

Within moments she'd been at the bedside with a syringe in her hands and had quietly and efficiently prepped the IV port and added the anti-emetic to House's IV, even as Wilson had tried his best to calm House and prevent him from causing himself further pain. They'd worked well as a team, no words needed, moving fluently in complement to each other when House had gagged and cursed; she quickly bringing a basin into place even as he had, as gently as possibly under the circumstances, rolled Greg swiftly onto his side. He'd seen the momentary grimace on her face and knew she understood as well as he did the added pain the sudden movement would cause and they'd shared a look of mute sympathy, a moment of solemn camaraderie, as they were forced to watch helplessly as their friend's body betrayed him, leaving him retching and sweating, muscles trembling uselessly.

She hadn't argued when he'd asked her to order another dosage of pain medication; it was clear to both of them that House was suffering, each involuntary spasm forcing him into unwanted movement, each ragged breath aggravating the pain from his broken ribs. They'd watched in unspoken concern as he had tried to hold himself still, to breathe through the pain until the drugs could take effect.

Wilson knew she had been as grateful as he when House had finally opened his eyes and looked around him; though tired and weak he'd sounded close to his usual self, brushing off Wilson's concern, snarking mildly at Cuddy. For a moment he'd seen in her face an echo of the relief flooding through him. Then he had felt his stomach drop when it quickly became obvious that nausea and blurred vision were not the full extent of House's concussion.

And now here they were, hovering at the foot of House's bed, discussing their options, making plans and decisions, being rational and responsible and practical when all Wilson wanted to do was scream and shout at the unfairness of it all.

Cuddy ran a tired hand over her face.

"Well," she sighed, "there's not much more we can do now till morning anyway."

Wilson nodded his agreement, his hand rubbing at the stiff muscles of his neck. He gave a small groan as he tilted his head this way and that, trying to work out the kinks. Sleeping in an armchair hadn't done him much good either. He checked his watch: 2:47am. Far too early to be awake, not enough time for it to be worth trying to get any more sleep. Damn it.

"Why don't you go home?" he suggested, unable to resist the wry smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, "House was right, you do look terrible."

He was rewarded with the kind of raised eyebrows look she usually reserved for House but her smile said she knew what he was trying to do.

"You're not looking so fresh yourself Dr Wilson," she informed him tartly.

"I'd say House and his scruffy ways were starting to have a bad influence on you if it weren't for the fact that the mere thought terrifies me." she grinned.

It was good to see a smile on her face. There'd been little enough reason for those of late. His gaze followed the lithe curve of her figure as she placed her hands at the base of her spine and stretched tiredly, tipping head back as she sought to loosen the tightness in her back and shoulders. She sighed and he felt himself flush guiltily as he realised his eyes were wandering. House would never let him hear the end of it if he realised…

The unfinished thought sobered his mood and drew his gaze back to the bed. House lay so quiet and still, seeming somehow smaller, lost amongst the paraphernalia of the ICU; tubes and wires and cables, drips and screens and readouts. His energy, his vitality, was missing and the room felt cold without it. House was a force of nature, a law unto himself, his fierce intellect driving everything he did and, much as he might wall himself off from life, he took a perverse kind of enjoyment from the diversions he allowed himself; baiting Cuddy, teasing his staff, insulting his patients, confounding everybody's expectations. As infuriating as House could be at times, right now Wilson would have given anything to see that mischievous glint in his eye and to know that another crazy stunt was in the offing.

Lisa's hand on his shoulder brought him out of his introspection and he turned to find her beside him, her brief smile not hiding the fact that her thoughts were as sombre as his own.

"He'll be ok," she said and he wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.

"I know."

They stood there together, her hand still on his shoulder, gazing at the lines of pain drawn deep on their friend's face, hoping for.. for what? For closure? Understanding? Acceptance? Even to his own ears his voice sounded small, unsure, as he murmured again, "I know."

She pulled her hand back, bringing it to her mouth as a yawn took her by surprise. She grimaced.

"Okay. I'm gonna head home and take a shower, make myself a bit more presentable. Maybe drink a lot of coffee…"

She gave him a resigned look. "I'd suggest you do the same but somehow I get the feeling it wouldn't get me anywhere?"

The look on his face obviously answered her question because she gave in gracefully, knowing when to admit defeat.

"Sometimes I'm not sure which of you two is the more stubborn," she told him ruefully, a wave of her hand suggesting that she had given up on reasoning with him and House both. She gathered up her purse and jacket from the armchair.

"_I_ am going home," she declared as she opened the door, "and when I return I will bring you coffee, and you will drink it, and then _you_ will go home and at the very least change into some clothes that have not been slept in."

Her voice brooked no disagreement but the slight tilt to her lips took the sting out of her lecture and her eyes were warm as she paused in the doorway.

"I'll have the CT scheduled first thing, as soon as the staff get in." she assured him.

Her eyes slid past him and lingered for a moment on the still figure in the bed. When she looked back at him her eyes were shining in the light from the corridor.

"Take care of him, James."

He nodded, his throat too tight to speak.

* * *

By 5:00am Lisa Cuddy felt almost human again. A shower turned up as hot as she could stand it had pounded the stiffness from her muscles and left her skin tingling, had probably done more to wake her up than the strong, fresh coffee she had left brewing as she showered. She had stood with her head under the brutal stream of water for a long time, her long hair clinging wetly to her neck and face, and if not all the water that had flowed down her cheeks had come from the shower head then that was no-one's concern but her own.

She had sat at her dresser wrapped in a thick terry-cloth robe, her hands cupped around a hot cup of coffee, and felt oddly refreshed; washed clean and empty, as if the stinging water had rinsed more than dirt from her skin, had dissolved the pain and fear and anger and swirled it down the drain.

By the time she arrived back at the hospital she was once again every inch the consummate administrator; calm, efficient, unruffled, her suit smartly pressed, make-up immaculate, not a hair out of place. House's assailant had taken something from her yesterday; her sense of security, her confidence. Today she would take it back, take control. To do anything else was to let him win. Her professional armour in place, she was ready for the day's battles.

The hospital was still quiet at this early hour and she walked the empty corridors with a sense of quiet affection and pride. This was a good hospital. This was _her_ hospital.

True to her promise, she carried two cups of steaming coffee as she carefully nudged open the door to House's room. 5:00am or not, as a doctor you soon learned which of the local coffee shops kept which hours and the small café two blocks away opened at 4:00am on weekdays – and made a damn good latté.

She was not surprised to find Dr Wilson awake, slouched in the chair beside the bed, his head propped up on one hand as he flicked through a set of case notes in his lap. A loose pile of paperwork was scattered on the floor at his side. He looked up as she entered and gave her a small smile.

They kept their voices low as she handed him his coffee.

"How is he?" she asked, nodding towards the bed.

He took a careful sip from his drink, savouring the rich warmth.

"No change," he told her. "Sleeping peacefully."

He caught her glance at the chaos of files around his chair and grinned ruefully. "Couldn't get back to sleep." he shrugged. "Listening to House snore loses its entertainment value pretty quickly so I thought I'd catch up on some charting."

Cuddy settled herself in the second armchair with a smile, "Charting is more interesting than watching House sleep? He'll be mortally offended to hear that."

"Hmm, well just because he finds sleeping more entertaining than charting…" Wilson mused good-naturedly.

She felt her heart lighten a little as they bantered easily, falling smoothly back into familiar habits.

She let him finish his coffee before holding him to his side of their bargain. Not giving him time to protest, she took the empty cup from him and swiped the file from his lap.

"Home," she ordered firmly. "Now."

When he would have grumbled she pointed out that House would never forgive him if he turned down an official sanction _not_ to do his charting. Tired though he was, Wilson couldn't help but grin at that.

She chivvied him gently in the direction of the door and, when he turned back to look at House, his heart and soul in his eyes, she answered his unasked question.

"I'll stay with him," she promised.

"I'll be back in an hour.."

She interrupted him, "Make it two."

She met his frown with her most disarming expression and a sweetly innocent voice, "Two hours Dr Wilson, a hot shower and a change of clothes – or I tell him you said he snores."

He scoffed lightly, and grinned at her, the mood broken. She saw him off with a smile and shut the door firmly behind him. She'd brought some paperwork of her own with her and had every intention of settling in the chair and getting an early start on the day but something drew her to the bedside and she stood for a long moment, watching House as he slept. He lay still and silent under the weight of medication and she couldn't help a small smile at Wilson's accusation of snoring. He looked so pale and drawn against the crisp, white hospital sheets and she reached out a hand to his forehead, finding the skin cool and dry. The bruise at his temple was starting to discolour, the bluish/purplish tinge spreading under the skin, accentuating his pallor, the dark hollows under his eyes. She sighed.

"One of these days, House," she told him softly, "One of these days, you'll be the death of me."

When Wilson returned she had pulled an armchair alongside the bed and was sat staring into space, her paperwork untouched, one hand loosely holding his.

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_TBC_


	9. Chapter 9

_Thanks for all the reviews - much appreciated!_

_Am not entirely sure about this chapter - I've been struggling with it for days. It's kind of a fill-in scene I guess but it needed to be written.. am hoping I've got the tone and the voices right. Please let me know what you think..._

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**In Self Defence – Chapter 9**

Gregory House was awoken by the sound of an insistent voice. He awoke groggily and for a moment he was confused, unsure of his surroundings, and then he tried to move and a spike of hot pain served as a sharp reminder. Oh yeah. Hospital. Shit. He groaned slightly, gritting his teeth as he waited for the flare of pain to slowly subside.

"_Wake up, House."_

He flinched away from the intrusive voice, frowning sleepily. The brief stab of pain was receding and the lingering after-affects of strong pain medication left him feeling drowsy and dislocated, his limbs heavy and his mind feeling like it was stuffed with cotton wool. He rather liked this oddly muffled sensation, he had a strong suspicion that harsh reality was not going to be pleasant and he was happy to put that moment off for as long as possible. As long as he didn't move he felt fairly comfortable and could quite happily just drift back off to…

"_House!"_

A hand on his shoulder.

"_Come on, House."_

He tried to express his desire to be left in peace but it came out mumbled and slurred, his voice thick with sleep and opiates.

"Leemeelone.."

"_No can do, my friend. Come on, wake up."_

The voice brooked no disagreement. House grumbled fitfully, his comfortable sleepiness rapidly dissipating.

"_You've got about 30 seconds before I set Cuddy on you…"_

House's eyelids felt like they'd been glued shut but he finally dragged them open, squinting against the sudden light to find James Wilson standing over him with a mischievous grin on his face. "I thought that might do the trick," his friend commented smugly.

House eyed him balefully, his mind still lazy with sleep and narcotics. He felt too woozy to come up with a clever response to that and conversation in general seemed like an awful lot of effort so he decided not to bother, his gaze sliding past Wilson and focusing on nothing in particular. His head felt incredibly heavy and all he wanted to do was just let himself slide, let thoughts and consciousness slip away…

"House? Hey, you ok?"

A note of concern in his voice and when fingers snapped in front of his eyes and forced him to focus he saw the levity of a moment ago had left Wilson's face.

"You with me?" Wilson frowned down at House from his vantage point hovering anxiously over the bed, one hand fumbling in the pocket of his lab coat for the ever-present penlight. House lay passive and still, feeling pleasantly numb, while Wilson shone the small torch in both his eyes, the bright blur of light burning into his retinas, flicking away, blinding him for a second, then flicking away, in and out, in and out… He felt oddly disconnected, thoughts slipped away from his grasp, sand in his fingers, ripples on the water. He floated.

"Greg?" Wilson's voice was definitely worried. "Do you know where you are?"

His eyelids felt heavy. He wanted to be left alone. Wilson looming over the bed; staring at him. Stop staring. Asking pointless questions. Hah. Stupid questions. Of course he knew where he was. A hospital is a hospital is a hospital. Green ceiling, green walls; green is the smell of antiseptic in the air, is the beep of the monitors. Hospital sounds green. He was a stone thrown into the water; ripples expanding outwards and he was sinking…

Movement was an effort, conscious thought took energy he didn't have.

But Wilson wouldn't stop staring and there was fear in his eyes. Fear was green – green like hospitals. Everything was green today. It took all his concentration to make his lips move, to form a word, and even then it came out slurred and drowsy. But the word chased the green taste of fear from Wilson's face and that was a good thing.

"Nnhosptl" House mumbled.

"Hey." Not Wilson's voice. Someone else. Hospital doors make an odd little _"hussssh"_ sound as they swing open. "How's he doin'?"

Wilson turned away as the door _hussshed_ closed. No more staring. Good.

Voices at the foot of the bed, fairies at the end of the garden. Imagine, a man who created the most intelligent fictional character in history believing in… Voices were talking. Taking about him?

"_He's a little woozy. It's the meds - pupils are slow to react."_

"_When was his last dose?"_

Voice was familiar. His mind put a face to the voice but it was a moment before his scattered thoughts could connect a name to the face. Foreman; Four man; Sign of Four; Sherlock Holmes; Conan Doyle; fairies at the bottom of the garden; voices at the bottom of the bed.

"…_Should be coming out of it soon…"_

"…_CT scan is booked for 9.00am…"_

"…_neuro checks…"_

"…_Cuddy mentioned memory loss?…"_

The voices were making his head hurt. Too many words; too much to follow. Concentration made his head spin. He shifted restlessly and tremors of pain cut a swathe through the fog. Air escaped him in a sigh that was not quite a groan; a tight, sharp sound, a sterile, green sound, green like the ceiling, green like the walls, green like the air in this room.

He rolled his head to the right and they were waiting for him, expressions guarded, faces wary. Smiles pasted tightly over concern. Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three.

Foreman had taken charge. The neurologist wanted to do his own neuro checks. House wanted to sleep. His head was starting to ache and the pleasant lethargy was slowly slipping away from him. The cold, clinical reality of consciousness was creeping up on him and it was not a pleasant feeling. The last thing he felt like was chatting. He let his head loll back over to the left.

"_Hey. Stay with us, House"_

Foreman's turn to lean over the bed. Everybody standing around him, staring down at him, talking about him, over him, poking him, prodding him, drugging him, while he lay here trapped, a prisoner of his own frailty. He remembered this. He hated this. He wanted to get out of here.

Foreman was poking him with questions, needling him with irrelevancies. He wanted to be left alone. His pulse was pounding in his head. Don't want to be here. Don't… want.. to.. be.. here…

"_House? Are you ok?"_

Wilson frowning down at him. Foreman reaching over to shine a penlight in his eyes. Why couldn't they leave him alone! He felt as though he was suffocating, could hear his breath rasping in his chest as he struggled for air, and every breath brought a familiar sting of pain.

Wilson's voice. _"He's confused. Is it just the meds?"_

He flinched at the touch of a hand on his shoulder and instinct told him to fight back, to break free, to get out of here. The IV line in the crook of his elbow pinched painfully as he lashed out with his left arm, knocking the hand away, heaving himself up from the mattress.

"_House, no!"_

He was unprepared for the pain. It crashed over him in a tidal wave that drowned out sight, hearing, thought. Every muscle in his chest and abdomen screamed and fiery agony raced up and down his rib cage. He couldn't even cry out, his breath was stolen by pain, ripped out of him in a low gasp of agony. The strength drained from his limbs and he fell back against the mattress, his head swimming, black spots crowding in at the edge of his vision.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think.

"_Dammit, Greg!"_

He gritted his teeth, eyes squeezed shut, and tried to focus on Wilson's voice, anything to distract him from the awful, sickening throb of pain. Anger and exasperation weighed heavy in his voice.. and did nothing to hide the tremor that spoke of worry and fear.

No more numbness now, no more pleasant drifting. His nerves were singing with the fire of fresh, new pain. He held himself tensely, breathing shallowly as he waited, hoped for time to dull the sharp edges of the pain, allow it to fade into the background. He became aware of Wilson's hands firm on his shoulders, pinning him to the mattress. He wanted to laugh. Last thing he felt like doing right now was moving. Pain had chased away the fog in his head and he had been right on the money – reality was a rotten place to be right now. He ached all over. He concentrated on controlling his breathing, feeling the painkillers still in his system blessedly beginning to take the edge off the pain.

Foreman was talking over his head, discussing him with Wilson.

"It could be related to the concussion. Pupil reactions are fine though – a little slow but that's from the meds. Is he oriented?"

Wilson blew out a sigh of frustration. "I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't been able to get a clear answer out of him other than that he knew he was in the hospital."

Even with his eyes closed House knew Foreman would be nodding in that oh-so-serious way of his.

"We need to do the neurological checks before we take him down to CT," he decided.

House had had enough of being discussed and talked over like some ignorant clinic patient.

"I'm fine." His voice sounded tired and shaky but it worked. Pain still thrummed through him, trembling his muscles, fading slowly, too slowly. He didn't bother opening his eyes.

"Hey. You had me worried there." The relief was evident in Wilson's voice.

House cracked open an eye to find Wilson looming over him, a relieved smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "How you feeling?" he asked.

"Like crap."

There was a snort from Foreman, "Now there's the House we know and love."

House turned his head slowly, not wanting to aggravate his growing headache, and favoured his subordinate with an icy glare. "I have no desire to know about your kinky fantasies concerning me, Foreman," he sniped sarcastically. "Now, I believe you mentioned something about performing neuro checks?"

Foreman rolled his eyes in a familiar gesture of exasperation and House felt mildly pleased to have re-established the correct order of things to their relationship; me boss, you not. If he were honest with himself, he hadn't been facetious in his answer to Wilson – the intense pain of movement was slowly subsiding but it left behind an overall, generalised ache that seemed to encompass most of his major muscle groups. His head was throbbing quietly and he felt really quite ridiculously weak and shaky. No sense letting Foreman see that though – it was enough that Wilson was hovering about like a concerned mother hen, he could do without mothering by members of his own team.

He submitted to Foreman's examination meekly enough; answering questions about who he was, where he was, what year it was, what month, what day… things got a little confused around about there. He remembered waking in the night, the nausea, the awful pain as he had vomited helplessly into a bowl. Beyond that things got a little fuzzy. He made a good guess at the day by simple extrapolation and Foreman seemed satisfied with his answer. House frowned. The effort of concentration was doing nothing to improve his headache… or his memory.

"Your vision seems to have cleared up." Wilson noted casually as Foreman completed his exam and left to check that CT was ready for them. House grunted, not really feeling up to a whole heap of conversation right now. He could feel Wilson's gaze coolly assessing him and House knew he wasn't fooled for a second.

"How's your head?"

House closed his eyes for a moment; his head felt heavy, aching, the pulse pounding in his temples. He sighed.

"Awful." he admitted.

Wilson's expression chastised him for not having mentioned something earlier. "I'll get you something for the headache," he told him. "Something that won't knock you out quite so much."

House grimaced and, with an effort, raised his right arm from the bed to rub at the ache in his temple. He winced when his fingers met swollen, tender flesh.

He hoped Wilson didn't hear the tremor in his voice as he asked, almost plaintively, "What happened, James?"

Wilson had dragged an armchair to the side of the bed and he sat leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked tense, tired. "You don't remember anything?"

He guessed the frustration was evident on his face because Wilson didn't wait for an answer before continuing.

"We don't know exactly," he said. "You were missing from the clinic, you weren't answering your pager.."

He threw House a grin that was equal parts exasperation and despair. "Everyone thought you were playing hooky."

House would have smiled at that were it not for the look on Wilson's face. There was a tight, pinched look to his youthful features that spoke of trauma, of shock and fear, of hours spent sitting beside a hospital bed waiting, just waiting. He'd seen that look on Wilson's face before. He swallowed.

"It was Cuddy who found you."

House's eyes widened at that.

"She was on the warpath, vowing to hunt you down." Wilson gave a short laugh that had little to do with humour. "First place she checked was the exam rooms and she found you on the floor…" he looked away, his words tailing off as his voice cracked slightly.

House couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"Jesus Christ, Greg – you scared the living daylights out of me!" Staring at the floor, Wilson's voice was hot with anger and hurt, raw with the fear and shock that had been bottled up inside him since a nurse had walked into his office and ripped the ground from under his feet with a few short words.

House watched wordlessly as Wilson tipped his head back and blew out a long breath, his eyes closed, slowly and deliberately letting the tension drain from his body. His voice was soft, quiet, as he said, "When I walked into radiology and saw you… saw what he'd done to you…"

He raised his eyes to meet House's gaze and the fear still lingered in those warm brown eyes.

"You've got a contusion to your right temple and a concussion – so far symptoms have included blurred vision, nausea, disorientation, confusion and memory loss."

He seemed to take some comfort from slipping back into familiar medical terminology, his voice gaining strength as he listed clinical details, his eyes never leaving House's.

"You got fractures to the fourth, fifth and eighth ribs on the right side and one hell of a lot of blunt force trauma to the chest and abdomen."

The pinched look had faded from Wilson's face and he just looked… tired. Drained.

"Only you know what happened in that exam room, and you can't tell us," he sighed. "All I know is the room got trashed and you got the crap kicked out of you."

House was silent, digesting this information. Hearing the facts recited didn't make the events any more immediate, any more real to him; the hole in his memory remained stubbornly blank.

He looked up at Wilson and hated to see the fear and sorrow in his friend's eyes, hated that he'd been put through hell because of him. God, if it had been the other way round, if it had been Wilson lying here…

"Were the police called?" he asked gruffly.

Wilson nodded. "For all the good they can do. There's not much to go on and if you can't tell them anything…"

There was a hint of mischievousness in House's voice as he interrupted, "Have they looked into the possibility that Cuddy hired someone?"

He was pleased to see Wilson's face struggle with frustration, disbelief and exasperation before, inevitably, the smallest of grins began to tug at his mouth.

House kept his face straight and his expression innocent as his friend's smile widened but when Wilson began to laugh quietly, shaking his head in disbelief, he couldn't keep an answering grin from his mouth.

When Foreman stuck his head round the door to announce that CT were ready, he found them chortling like naughty school kids, House laughing even as he winced, his hand pressed to his ribs.

* * *

_TBC..._


	10. Chapter 10

_Okay, it's finally here. It has taken me ages to update this story because I have really, really struggled with this chapter. I knew where I wanted the story to go from the end of the last chapter and this chapter was kind of a fill-in, needed to move the action along and get it to where I want things to be. For some reason I found it incredibly difficult to write. I'm still not entirely sure about it. Please review and let me know what you think – all constructive criticism gratefully received, as ever._

_Hopefully the next update will come rather quicker – lots more lovely House angst to come! (Grin)

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**In Self Defence – Chapter 10**

Dr James Wilson was supposed to be doing paperwork. He had patient files to review, requests for consults to respond to, and a pile of administrative work relating to his positions on the board and on the transplant committee. He had more than enough work to occupy him.

Dr James Wilson was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.

Lack of sleep from the night before was catching up to him and the stress of the last 24 hours had taken its toll on his stamina. He couldn't decide whether he felt like crying or throwing up. So he sat at his desk, surrounded by neglected paperwork, feeling dejected and exhausted.

Getting the CT scan done had been traumatic, for everyone concerned.

He'd been through so many emotions in such a short space of time that he hardly knew what to feel anymore. He'd been afraid for House, angry at his assailant, worried about his condition, relieved that he was ok, exasperated at his stubbornness.. a tumult of emotions that had become so tangled up he couldn't separate one from the other and had found himself almost feeling annoyed at House for putting him through this ordeal. Exasperation had warred with relief as it had become evident that House's irreverent sense of humour had survived intact and, before he knew it, he'd been wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, feeling almost cathartic at the release of emotion.

The laughter hadn't lasted long.

Foreman's face had been a picture as he'd poked his head round the door to find the two of them chortling like idiots – the look of disbelief on his face had only made them laugh all the more but House's levity had abruptly died with a sharply indrawn breath and his sudden pallor had sobered Wilson up quickly.

House's arm had been curled protectively against his ribs and he had seemed to be trying his damnedest not to breathe.

All the fears and worries had come flooding back and Wilson had been unable to keep the concern from his voice.

"House? You ok?"

He'd kicked himself almost as soon as the words had left his mouth; it was a stupid question - it was more than obvious that House was _not_ ok - and one that House detested. He hated the insincerity, claiming people only enquired as a sop to their own conscience, to make themselves feel better, and had no desire for an honest answer. Wilson had fully expected to get a snide remark to that effect and cold anxiety had coiled in his stomach at House's uncharacteristic lack of response.

He had fired off orders to Foreman whilst House had simply withdrawn, his attention focused inwards as he struggled with the pain; shutting himself off, his body held stiffly, his breathing slow and careful, for the interminable minutes that it took for Foreman to return with the medications Wilson had requested. House's eyes had been closed, his face a frown of concentration, as Wilson had carefully pushed a reduced dose of painkillers into the IV port. Now that he seemed more alert and aware, trying to manage House's pain had become a delicate balance – enough medication to relieve the pain from his injuries without making him too dopey or knocking him out completely – and it had been a long ten minutes before House had let out a shaky sigh and allowed some of the tension to ease from his muscles. Wilson wished he could have given him something a bit stronger but knocking House out with high dose pain meds was not a sustainable treatment option and House had enough neurological complications from his concussion without adding to them with drug-induced confusion and disorientation.

He had remembered all too well the cold fear that had gripped him less than an hour earlier when House had awoken still tangled in the strong grip of pain medication, his vacant gaze looking straight through Wilson, his normally sharp blue eyes blank and unfocused. It had terrified him to see his friend so disoriented and incoherent and he'd had to entertain the awful possibility that the confusion was a further symptom of concussion, a further injury for House to battle. The relief had been overwhelming when House had snapped out of it, aiming his usual sarcasm at Foreman and even joking about the attack.

House's tightly-held posture had relaxed as the painkillers had finally worked their magic but he'd kept his eyes closed, his face turned away, and Wilson had felt his heart sink at House's obvious awkwardness. Awake and alert, without the confusion of concussion or drugs to numb him to his surroundings, House's walls and defences had been quickly rebuilt. He hated people to see him as weak or helpless and went to great lengths to hide his pain even from those closest to him – even from Wilson. The last thing he would want right now was people hovering over him.

Wilson had shot Foreman a look which tried to convey all of this and more. The neurologist had taken the hint with a surprising show of understanding and had announced that he was going to head down and make sure things were set up for the CT, telling Wilson and House that he'd "see you down there". The door had hussshed closed and for a few moments the only sound in the room was the steady rasp of House's breathing.

Wilson had given House the space he needed, leaning back in the chair, training his eyes on the bland green of the ceiling, and letting the room grow heavy with silence. After a while he had heard a soft rustle and dropped his eyes to find House had turned his head and was regarding him with a deliberately empty gaze.

"Hey"

House had grunted in response and they had both honoured the unspoken agreement to just let it ride. Don't ask, don't tell.

With a wordless nod Wilson had gone to inform the orderly that they were ready and, between the two of them, they had unhooked House from his array of monitors and manoeuvred the bed out into the hallway with a minimum of disruption. House had remained uncharacteristically silent during the trip, staring disinterestedly at the ceiling passing overhead, his attention focused elsewhere. Wilson had been surprised to feel a moment of trepidation as they had pushed through the doors to the radiology department and he had wondered briefly if he would ever be able to see this hallway again without his vision being coloured by the memory of yesterday's events.

House had been grumpy and uncooperative in the CT suite, snapping at Foreman when he tried to take charge, and Wilson had had to hide a small smile at the look of frustration on the neurologist's face. His amusement had faded rapidly when the time had come to transfer House from the bed to the CT machine. Despite the painkillers Wilson had given him, any movement was obviously difficult for House – his entire torso was bruised and tender and any kind of movement pulled painfully at swollen flesh, stealing the breath from him and sapping him of strength. They'd tried to move him as quickly and as carefully as possible but even so the transfer had left him trembling and sweating, biting back a curse as he tried to breathe through the pain, his rapid breathing tense and shallow in an effort to avoid aggravating the pain from his broken ribs. By unspoken agreement they'd let him be, giving the painkillers time to do their job, before starting the scan.

Wilson and Foreman had been sitting in the control booth, preparing to start the test, when the door had been quietly pushed open and Dr Cuddy had slipped unobtrusively into the room. After the difficulties they'd had in waking House they were running a good 30 minutes behind on their allotted appointment time and yet somehow she had known exactly when to turn up. Sixth sense, he'd wondered idly.. or just the mark of an extremely efficient administrator? She'd wordlessly taken a seat next to him, throwing him a quick smile that spoke of a shared apprehension, as Foreman had started the scan programme. The machine had hummed to life and the three of them had sat in shared silence in the gloom of the control booth, their faces lit only by the eerie green light of the screens; eyes, minds, thoughts focused on one thing alone.

The scan seemed to take an interminably long time.

Though more than adept at reading CT results, Wilson and Cuddy had deferred to Foreman, as the neurologist, to confirm the diagnosis. The smile on his face had shown a relief as genuine as their own as he had pronounced, "It's clean. No visible swelling or abnormality."

They'd spent a scant couple of minutes discussing the results, suggesting prognoses and treatment plans, before House had given voice to his frustration at being unable to move about under his own steam and had started yelling for someone to "get me out of this damned machine!" Cuddy's raised eyebrows had spoken volumes and her voice was warm with resigned amusement as she had commented, "He seems to be feeling better?"

Foreman, knowing he would bear the brunt of House's ill-humour, as usual, had merely rolled his eyes as he'd headed out into the main room. The look Wilson had shared with Cuddy had been more serious.

"He's doing better," he'd agreed, answering her unspoken question. "He's mostly lucid and oriented, though he gave us a fright this morning.."

The flash of concern on her face, minute enough that those who didn't know her well might have missed it altogether, had cleared as he had explained further, "Confusion due to the medications. We were worried for a while that it was another symptom of the concussion but his neuro results are ok... considering..."

She had nodded her understanding, her gaze on him coolly assessing as she changed the subject.

"How are you holding up?"

Lisa knew him too well. He could put on a good face for his staff, for his colleagues, but a shared history of friendship with – and concern for – House meant she could read him like a book. She could see the fatigue, the stiffness from sleeping in an armchair, the worry that weighed down his shoulders and settled like a lead weight around his heart. He'd tried to shrug off her concern with a smile but one look at her face had told him she wasn't buying.

"You need a break," she'd lectured seriously. "I know you're his friend and I know you're worried but you can't spend every minute looking after him."

Her had mouth curved into a wry smile and he couldn't help himself from joining in as she'd reminded him, "Besides, you're depriving him of all the fun of having nurses to shout at – you know he won't truly feel better until he's made at least one member of staff cry.."

She'd put her foot down when he'd tried to protest, "You have work of your own to see to Dr Wilson; I can't have both my Head of Diagnostics and my Head of Oncology out of action."

Her mood had been decisive, stepping easily into her accustomed role as organiser, decision-maker, as she'd held open the door to usher him out of the control room.

"You said it yourself, he's awake and lucid and his injuries aren't life-threatening. He's going to be tired and grumpy, not to mention downright miserable until we get his meds sorted, and the ICU staff can handle him well enough. Get him settled and then I want you back in your office.."

She threw him the quickest of winks as she followed him out into the main room, her smile taking the sting from her words.

"I don't care whether you get any work done in there or not but I want to see you in your office – or the clinic or the wards, anywhere that isn't ICU – until at least lunchtime today. Okay?"

House had been less than thrilled to see Cuddy emerge from the control booth along with Wilson. "Checking up on me again, Cuddy?" he'd sniped irritably. Lisa had let his comment ride, taking House's rudeness calmly in her stride, her clinical gaze swiftly taking in the sweat beading the pale skin of his forehead and the careful shallowness of his breathing. She'd favoured him with a serene smile, knowing it bugged him to not get a reaction to his jibes, and ignored him in favour of a last admonishment to Wilson, "Lunchtime. I mean it."

House had turned his head to follow her exit from the room before fixing his friend with a baleful glare. Wilson had fully expected some scathing comment about lunch dates with colleagues or Cuddy using him as a substitute while House was out of action and he'd been mildly surprised when no snide remarks were forthcoming. The transfer back to the bed had taken more out of House than he would admit but Wilson knew him well enough to see the signs.

House had remained stubbornly silent during the short trip back to the ICU and he had lain seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts whilst Wilson had settled him back into his room and reattached the monitors. Wilson knew from experience that House would snap out of his sulk when he was good and ready and that there was really no point in him being here right now in any case, as House clearly was not in the mood for company. He'd been hanging the IV bag back on its stand when the door had slid open and he had looked up to see Cuddy accompanied by the same two detectives who'd been hovering in the radiology department yesterday.

The look on Lisa's face was apologetic as she'd introduced himself and a disinterested House to the detectives, explaining that they wanted to question House about the attack. He'd found himself interrupting, protesting at the futility of the attempt, "But he can't tell you anything.."

The older of the two - Detective Lindman was it? – had overridden him smoothly, agreeing that it was probably a wasted effort but that nonetheless they had to try. Wilson had looked to Cuddy but her expression had said that she'd been through all this already and she'd indicated with a resigned shrug that they obviously weren't going to understand how complete House's memory loss was until they found out for themselves.

House had seemed tired and apathetic, scowling at the intrusion but making none of the caustic remarks that Wilson would have expected. His friend had looked tired and uncomfortable and his responses to the detectives' opening questions were abrupt and impatient. Wilson had been aware of the tightly controlled frustration in House's voice and it had occurred to him that they really hadn't had chance to talk yet about the memory loss and its implications. House was a man who lived his life, partly of necessity since the infarction, on an intellectual level; treating the world as a puzzle to be solved, storing data and nuance, filtering experiences through the sharp focus of his mind, constantly thinking, considering, analysing. Wilson could only imagine how frustrating it must be to have a piece of his own mind, of his own experience, essentially missing, unreachable; the puzzle unsolvable because a vital clue was missing.

Lisa's pointed glance at her watch as she had held the door open in invitation had reminded him of her lecture in the CT department, and made it clear that she was not about to rescind her orders.

And so he had reluctantly left House to the tender mercies of the Princeton Police Department and now here he sat in his office, ignoring several piles of paperwork in favour of indulging his exhaustion, struggling to sort through 24 hours worth of emotional upheaval. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, feeling like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. A glance at the clock told him it was only 10am. Cuddy had been explicit in her instructions not to return to ICU until lunchtime and he figured that any earlier than 12 o'clock would be risking her wrath.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, making a conscious effort to try and relax, to focus. He let the breath out and opened his eyes. He couldn't sit here feeling sorry for himself like this for the next two hours – there was work to be done, patients and families who needed him. Pushing his exhaustion aside, he reached for a file from the top of the pile and flipped it open, his fingers reaching automatically for a pen. With one eye unconsciously on the clock, he focused determinedly on his work.

* * *

_TBC.._


	11. Chapter 11

_Well, here it is. After a hiatus of positively Housian proportions, this fic is finally being updated! My apologies for making you all wait so long and my thanks to those who rightfully – and righteously - bugged me to get writing again!_

_Once again, please do review and let me have your thoughts – good and bad – about this chapter. The more reviews I get, the more likely I am to get the next update done quicker:)_

_Okay then… bring on the angst…

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**In Self Defence – Chapter 11**

House awoke suddenly from a fitful sleep, consciousness flooding back with a sharpness that snapped his eyes open. For a moment he was disoriented and he stared uncomprehendingly at the bland green ceiling, a vague feeling of disquiet settling like a cold weight in his chest.

Memory filtered back in stages, sensory perception coalescing into comprehension; green ceiling - 2nd floor ICU at PPTH; beeping of monitors – hospital room, a vague memory of nausea and a blurry Cuddy standing over him looking worried. He shifted uncomfortably in the hospital bed and the stiff, medicated numbness in his torso and limbs brought jumbled recollections of pain, of the claustrophobia of a CT machine, his ribs aching as he laughed with Wilson, fumbling drowsily through neuro checks, Wilson's hands on his shoulders as he retched helplessly and then.. then nothing. White noise. An awareness of time having passed... but nothing there to fill the gap. A hole in his memory.

He grimaced in frustration. The information was just there, tantalisingly out of reach, and he couldn't help feeling that if he just concentrated he could find a way to access the memories... but the doctor in him knew better. His memory would return in its own time – if at all. The only thing to be achieved from trying to force the matter was a pounding headache. Speaking of which.. he raised a hand, slowly and carefully, to his head and pressed his fingers lightly to his temple where he could already feel the heavy, tight beginnings of pressure. His fingers brushed against the tight, hot flesh of the swelling near his hairline and he flinched, his hand jerking away. He let his arm drop back to the bed with a sigh.

The interview with the detectives had been exhausting. Frustrating and pointless and exhausting. They'd gone around and around in circles, asking questions he had no answers to. Did he remember what happened in the clinic? Did he know his attacker? Roughly what time had the attack taken place? Was he aware of anyone who would want to hurt him?

He'd almost laughed aloud at that question. Under different circumstances he would have told the idiots exactly what he thought of them and their pointless questions but the struggle to and from the CT machine had sapped his strength and he'd felt ridiculously weak and tired, unable to summon up the enthusiasm to indulge in sarcasm. So he'd lain helplessly in the prison of his hospital bed, unable to do anything for himself, listlessly responding to a litany of idiotic questions.

By the time they'd given up and left him in peace his head had been pounding and a rising nausea had left him feeling as green as the endless ceiling above him. He had decided that, in his professional medical opinion, concussion sucked.

Left alone, confined to a hospital bed with only the ceiling for entertainment, House had realised that the police had at least been good for one thing: distraction. Distraction from the discomfort, from the queasiness, from thinking. For the first time since awakening in this mess he was awake and alert – and alone. Without the cotton wool confusion of strong drugs, and without anything to do, House's mind went into overdrive. He detested inactivity at the best of times, always needing some kind of stimulation, something to occupy his mind – his work, his TV, his music, his Gameboy, the everyday puzzles presented by the people around him. His mind was restless and relentless, requiring constant input. Boredom was anathema to him.

And now, with no-one to talk to and nothing to occupy his mind, he couldn't help dwelling on his situation. Like the temptation to keep probing at a tender tooth, just to see if its still painful, he couldn't resist poking at the edges of the hole in his memory. It was the oddest sensation. A void where there should be consciousness. The knowledge that he had done things, said things, existed, interacted, and yet had absolutely no recall, no record of that time. He had found out quickly that frustration only increased the tightening band of pressure around his temples; and that the headache did nothing to help his nausea.

He had felt lost and out of control, his own body and mind betraying him. He was trapped, physically and mentally, with nothing but his own unwelcome thoughts to occupy him and it was with a feeling of almost desperation that he had fumbled for the call button. Unaccustomed anxiety had made him snappy and he had seen the nurse's face tighten with resentment at his caustic remarks, his demands for pain relief and anti-emetics met with the resigned lack of sympathy reserved for particularly difficult patients. He had felt a momentary comfort in the familiarity of the scene, Dr House upsetting the nurses once again, but his illusion of control was ripped rudely away when the growing nausea surged dizzyingly and the nurse he had so recently chastised was rolling him efficiently to one side, her firm hand on his shoulders affirming her authority over him as she had held the basin to his chin, her face carefully expressionless as he retched helplessly. Concussion really sucked.

He'd been sweating and pale by the time his meds were drawn and administered. The necessity of sharp movement had reawoken the fire in his ribs, tendrils of pain licking across his torso, stealing his breath and adding to his nausea. He'd been ridiculously, pathetically grateful for the slow push of drugs into the IV port and he knew from the nurse's eyes that she'd seen it. He could see her visibly reconsidering her difficult patient assessment as she'd fussed around the bed, disposing of the spent syringe, rearranging the sheets where they'd pulled loose as he'd vomited pathetically into a cardboard bowl.

He'd felt a sort of apathetic despair creep over him. This was everything he hated about being an invalid: people changing their perceptions based on a physical condition, acting differently because of guilt or pity, modulating their reactions, making allowances. He didn't want allowances, he didn't want to be treated differently. It wasn't his damn leg that made him a cripple, it was other people who made him a cripple. He was rude and abrasive and they let him be. Because of his leg. Because he was damaged. He was rude and abrasive because they let him be.

He'd closed his eyes against the unwanted sympathy.

He'd ignored her when she had asked if he needed anything else. He'd ignored the uncomfortable silence as she had debated whether to push for a response. He'd ignored the soft hush of the door sliding open and closed. He'd kept his eyes shut against the world and waited for the drugs to kick in, to smother nausea and pain with longed-for nothingness and let sleep claim him.

He had no idea had long he'd slept. There were no windows in the ICU rooms, no movement of sunlight and shadow by which to gauge the passing of time. A glance up at the IV pole told him that his saline drip was fuller than it had been. He'd been out long enough for someone to hang a new bag then. He felt a vague disquiet at the thought of people being here while he slept, standing over him, hooking him up to drugs and fluids whilst he was unaware. His thoughts strayed unbidden to that vacant space in his memory.. the white noise that represented hours of his existence, gone in an instant. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. He hated this.

He was seized with a sudden restlessness, a desire to be anywhere but here doing anything but this; lying here immobile in a hospital bed with nothing to do but think. Even clinic duty was preferable to… he caught himself before that thought could go any further. Last time he was in the clinic… Well, he didn't even remember last time he was in the clinic. Yesterday. 24 hours ago and he had absolutely no recall. He groaned in frustration, hands fisting uselessly at his sides. He was going around in circles here. He had to get out of here before he went insane.

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When Wilson slid open the door to House's room in the ICU at 1:17pm he was not at all surprised to find his friend in a foul mood. He was mildly surprised not to find him in restraints – if the ICU nurses were to be believed, nothing short of that was going to placate them and they claimed to have Cuddy's full approval. After spending an enlightening few minutes hearing his friend's many faults listed in great detail, Wilson was about one step away from signing off on the idea himself. He pushed the door closed and met House's sullen gaze with a look of resigned exasperation. He didn't say a word – didn't need to – as House regarded his hands-on-hips posture with a look of disdain before making a noise of disgust and turning his head away.

"You've been taking to nurses."

Wilson sighed heavily.

"Talking? No, not really.." His words were heavy with sarcasm, "Talking does not adequately describe the tirade I've just had to listen to."

He raised his eyes in mock consideration, "Ambushed would possibly be a more accurate word for it?..."

"Whatever." House's voice was muffled, his face still turned away from Wilson.

James frowned, taking a moment to study his friend. The bed had been raised slightly since his last visit and House lay in a half-upright position, the sheets twisted around his waist. The change in posture had caused the ubiquitous front-fastening PPTH hospital gown to gape slightly where it wrapped around House's thin frame and Wilson swallowed around a suddenly dry tongue as he caught a glimpse of the purpling colour beginning to develop across House's chest. That old, familiar feeling of sick fear churned once again in his stomach as he took note of the shallow respirations, the sallow tinge to House's skin.

"House?" He moved cautiously to the bed, his exasperation all but forgotten. "How are you doing?"

"I want out of here."

The usually gruff voice was subdued and Wilson had to make a conscious effort not to make a sarcastic retort to such a patently ridiculous request. He took a moment to just breathe, his hand pulling unconsciously at the back of his neck as he turned his gaze to the ceiling, gathering his thoughts, before choosing his words carefully.

"House... it's been less than a day.."

His attempt at rationality trailed off as House suddenly turned his head and regarded him with a piercing gaze, the blue of his eyes seeming feverishly bright against the pallor of his skin.

"House.."

"I'm going crazy in here."

Wilson couldn't help the hint of a wry smile that crept onto his face. "Well, you're certainly driving the nurses crazy, I'll give you that..."

House didn't even crack a smile and that's when Wilson knew this was serious. His heart sank. When his innocent enquiry into House's condition had been met with a barrage of complaints from the nursing staff, Wilson hadn't been too worried. God only knew that House often seemed to take some kind of perverse pleasure in aggravating people and he had taken the nurses' irritation with their latest patient as a sign that House was feeling more like his old self, having to hide a smile as he'd recalled Cuddy joking just that morning that House wouldn't be truly happy until he'd made at least one nurse cry.

However, it was becoming pretty clear that House wasn't having any kind of fun here. If he wasn't grinning at the effect his exploits had had on the nursing staff then he wasn't acting out just for the sake of it. And if he wasn't behaving badly just to get a reaction then that meant…

For a moment Wilson was too stunned to react.

"House! You can't be serious!"

He ran a hand distractedly through his hair, trying to find the words to convey his disbelief, his exasperation, his utter conviction that this was the dumbest idea ever.

"You've got a concussion and three broken ribs! You can't even get out of bed on your own – though not for lack of trying from what I hear! – never mind actually walk anywhere… You're in no fit state to be discharged!"

Expecting a snide comeback or some form of biting insult, if anything it worried Wilson even more that House didn't even try to argue with him. House simply let him talk himself out and then that cold blue gaze was shut off as he closed his eyes, with every indication of genuine fatigue, and rolled his head loosely to the other side, effectively turning his back.

Wilson was at a loss. Despite all they'd been through together over the years, he'd never seen House react like this.

His voice was so quiet that, standing helplessly beside the bed, Wilson almost didn't hear it.

"I'm going round in circles."

"What?" For a moment he wasn't sure he'd heard right. "House…"

He didn't move, didn't look back at Wilson, just kept talking in that oddly quiet voice, "Nothing to do but think… can't think about anything else…. I can't remember… but I can't stop thinking…"

Wilson was frozen. For a brief moment he had no idea what to say. House didn't talk about things. _They_ didn't talk about things. The joked and snarked and teased and said all the important things without ever needing to actually say them. House being honest floored him. It… scared him.

"I…"

The pillow rustled as House turned to meet his gaze and Wilson knew he'd hesitated too long. He'd blown it. The moment was gone.

There was an edge of House's usual acidity in his voice as he neatly side-stepped the issue, his eyes carefully neutral as he turned his gaze to the pale green ceiling. "At the very least get me my Gameboy or something, Wilson." he griped. "If I have to stare at this ceiling much longer I won't be held responsible when I snap and really give the nurses something to complain about."

For a brief second Wilson thought about pushing it. Thought about saying something; forcing the issue; trying to get back that brief, missed moment in time. But he knew House; knew him better than anyone. So he let himself follow House's lead, a smile on his lips as he argued the trouble he'd be in if Cuddy caught him smuggling in contraband, taking a kind of melancholy comfort from the ease with which they slipped, with barely a stumble, back into their old familiar roles.

He'd planned to stay for a while, keep House company, but he could see fatigue written in his friend's washed out complexion, in the fine tremors in the hand fiddling restlessly with the starched hospital sheets. House's gaze was fixed on the ceiling again when he stated simply, "I'm tired."

He kept the tone light, stopping in the doorway with a parting offer to risk life and limb by sneaking in some form of distraction later that day. House merely lifted a hand in response, his eyes already closed. When Wilson stopped at the nurses' desk for a quick update he figured something must have shown on his face because this time the complaints were held in check and the staff were unfailingly polite and concerned. He wondered briefly if this was how House felt; everyone around you reacting not to who you were but to _what_ you were. The thought did nothing for his sombre mood. As he left the ICU he couldn't help looking back at the glass-walled room. House lay unmoving in his hospital bed, surrounded by the paraphernalia of modern medicine, his face turned to the ceiling. His eyes were open.

* * *

House lay thinking for a long time after Wilson left. He was thinking about circles. He felt inexpressibly weary but sleep seemed to elude him. He couldn't seem to stop pushing at it, probing the edges of his memory, searching for clues to fill in the gaps that felt like raw wounds in his consciousness. Round and round and round until he felt dizzy. He wasn't aware of sleep creeping up on him, wasn't aware of his eyes slowly sliding shut as he slipped into darkness. He wasn't aware of dreaming – not until he awoke suddenly with a pounding heart, a cry escaping him as his involuntary jerk into wakefulness pulled tender skin taught over cracked bone. For a moment he thought someone else was in the room and he felt an involuntary panic rise like bile in his throat until he realised that the harsh, heavy breathing was his own, every gasping inhalation a stab of fire across his rib cage. He tried to relax, to slow his breathing, suddenly aware of the thundering of his pulse in his ears.

The dream was gone, swallowed into blackness with the rest of his goddamn fallible memory, leaving behind only a sick feeling of fear and a vague image of something dark moving at him with terrible speed. He raised a hand unconsciously to his temple, startling himself when his fingertips brushed against the tight swelling there, the ragged gash half hidden in his hairline. He jerked his hand away angrily, his breath hitching in his chest. He hated this. Hated feeling incomplete. Out of control.

House fixed his eyes on the endless green ceiling and concentrated on breathing, just breathing, waiting for the pain receptors to stop firing and the blood to stop pounding in his head. He felt trapped; imprisoned as much by the fragility of his scattered thought processes as by the physical frailty of his damaged body. He ached all over; his body crying out for rest and healing even as his mind spun in useless circles, achieving nothing but exhaustion.

Sleep was a long time coming.

* * *

_TBC..._


End file.
